


everything i loved (everything i lost)

by callieincali



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/F, dont try to convince me otherwise, honestly idk, i made julia more sad, just read this and cry pls, kady is a dork, niffin!kady, not a happy ending this time, sorry kids, yall gonna hate me
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-11
Updated: 2017-04-21
Packaged: 2018-10-17 08:50:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 25,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10590570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callieincali/pseuds/callieincali
Summary: au, where niffin!kady gets trapped inside julia's bodythis one's gonna hurt





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i had this idea and i wasn't gonna write it because i thought it would be too similar to the alice/quentin version but, fuck it, "it's been done before, but not by you" and here's me doing it. 
> 
> this was gonna be a one-shot but i was at 5,000 words and realized i'm barely halfway through so.... it was either split it in two parts or wait about a week to post it in its entirety. i'm very impatient. 
> 
> this half is just gonna scrape the surface. lots of set-up and background because i'm a slut for character development. 
> 
> disclaimer: there's going to be talk of rape, violence, and suicidal thoughts, so please do not read this if that is triggering to you. your mental health is far more important than my desire to get some kudos. 
> 
> but if you are reading, good luck.

Julia first met Kady at Brakebills, but to say they were acquaintances would be an exaggeration. The two didn't even exchange more than glances between one another until they were both well into their third years at the school.

Julia was a knowledge student and as far as she knew, "that-weird-bitch-Kady", as her peers tended to refer to her, was a physical kid.

Not that Julia was one to discriminate against someone purely because of their Discipline. She just knew that said Disciplines had a tendency to clique with their own, and she wasn't necessarily keen on being the one to break the conformity.

Still, she often found herself inside a cozy cottage near the edge of the Brakebills campus, mostly to see Quentin, but also because one of the physical kids— she believed his name was Eliot— was almost always providing the cottage's inhabitants with unlimited access to cigarettes and alcoholic beverages.

It was the first place she saw the wild-haired brunette, sprawled out on a couch, one hand clutching a beer by its neck and the other tucked behind her head, lost in the mess of curls surrounding it. Directly beside her, holding an identical drink, was the somewhat well-known psychic student, Penny Adiyodi. His arm was draped around her shoulders, holding her close as if his grip was the only thing keeping her from leaving her spot to find a different guy to lean on.

Julia's first impression of Kady was that her classmates were correct in their lines of thinking. She looked like a Class-A bitch.

Outside of her time spent in the cottage, Julia found herself wasting away the hours in the library, below her room in the attic.

It was, without a doubt, the quietest room on the property, rarely filled with more than the occasional bookworm or overzealous student. Even on the scarce instances when more than a handful of kids entered the doors of the library, they knew better than to cause a ruckus. Julia was nearly convinced that the students assumed talking was prohibited in the room full of books.

That theory was easily disproved by a certain familiar mane of dark curls pushing through the library's wooden doors one night, far past the time she usually expected visitors.

"Is this place still open?"

The question made it difficult for Julia not to break the cool exterior she was wearing, caught off guard at the fact that Kady had showed up in her territory. Generally, it was Julia in the physical kid's cottage, stepping onto Kady's turf, but when Kady did the same, Julia couldn't help but feel exposed— vulnerable, even.

Julia watched the other girl's eyes narrow faintly, in a way that displayed confusion towards the length of time it was taking Julia to answer the question.

"I don't think we ever close." She explained, soon regretting how her use of the word 'we' made it sound like she was an employee, rather than a student who just heavily enjoyed staying up late to read any books that piqued her interest.

Kady nodded, taking a brief inventory of her surroundings and stalking towards one of the endless rows of shelves, skimming her eyes along the titles it held.

She got through half of a bookshelf before she was facing Julia again.

"Do you have those Fillory books?" Her head was tilted, but her expression lacked the curious tone she was asking with, instead holding an indifferent look, like the idea of reading a children's fantasy book was boring to her.

Julia thumbed through the remainder of pages in the book in her hands, pretending to search her brain for something she already knew the answer to. The shorter girl dog-eared the page she was on and pushed the covers together, standing from her chair and stretching slightly to break some of the stiffness forming in her legs. The request did strike Julia as odd, considering Kady didn't fit the typical, bookworm, magic-enthusiast description that usually accompanied those who read the Fillory and Further series, but she wasn't there to ask questions. (She also wasn't there to help random students find books in the library, but somehow that didn't stop her.)

Without having to instruct her, Kady followed Julia up a few steps to a higher level, filled with small, four-seated tables. In daylight hours, the spot was known for its incredible lighting, provided by a large garden window that looked out upon Brakebill's complex campus maze. But in the darker hours of the night, the area held a glum vibe, easily turning to the dimmest place in the room.

Quentin had read and reread the Fillory series so many times, Julia had their location mostly memorized, and when she found the neat row of five black hardcovers, she tapped her fingers along the tops, watching as Kady stepped forward and squinted at the gold-lettered titles.

"My friend loves these books." Julia was muttering before she had decided on speaking. Kady's arms were crossed over her chest as she squatted down to the books' height, eyes tracing over the words on the spines.

"Yeah, Quentin. He's the one making me read them." The taller girl responded, reaching up and pushing a wave of hair out of her eyes. Julia didn't quite understand the explanation. She had grown up with Quentin, and unless he had changed drastically in the few days it had been since she last saw him, the awkward boy would not have the ability to ' _make_ ' someone do anything. Especially not someone like Kady Orloff-Diaz.

Even if Quentin had mentioned reading the books to her, it would have to have been Kady who decided to read them. Julia didn't have long to question the words before the girl was talking again.

"There's five of them?" Kady exclaimed, followed by a mostly inaudible utterance about how she didn't have the time to read five books. Her green eyes widened but quickly neutralized, and her hands reached for the book labeled 'Book One: The World in the Walls'.

"Thanks," Kady straightened and trudged back down the stairs, the book dangling from her grasp, and Julia followed suit, returning to her previous chair in the lounge area of the library.

Julia had expected Kady to walk out the double-doors at the front of the room, considering she had her book and there was no longer a reason to stay, but the messy-haired brunette plopped herself onto a couch across from Julia, breathing out a barely noticeable groan as she turned to the first page of the novel.

Julia's first instinct was to feel bothered by someone else occupying the space. After all, the library had become an escape of sorts for her, and the idea of someone frustrating her efforts to get some alone time initially made her want to yell at the girl to go read somewhere else.

But she didn't act on those urges, deciding Kady at least deserved a chance to prove she wouldn't be a nuisance to Julia's favorite time of the night.

Thankfully, that proved to be a beneficial choice. Kady kept to herself, only the sound of turning pages coming from the couch she was laying on. Julia— though she hated to admit it— would even go as far as to say that the company was a welcome change, secretly enjoying when her eyes would catch Kady's face scrunch up in concentration.

The night rolled into the beginning of the next day, and while Julia desperately craved the warmth of her sheets and blankets, the desire to wait for Kady to leave first kept her rooted in her seat.

It must have been two in the morning by the time Kady finally gave in, shutting her book and letting out an exhausted yawn as she stood from the cushions.

Again, Julia expected the brunette to take the book back to her room to continue reading it at another time, but her eyes followed Kady back up the steps to the ledge and stopped when they reached the bookshelf where Kady promptly returned the hardcover to its original location.

She even reset the pillows on the couch in a way that looked as if no one had sat on them in days.

Without a word, Kady disappeared out the doors, leaving Julia in a confused silence.

Kady coming to the library at nights soon became an everyday occurrence, neither of the two exchanging any words, but somehow speaking volumes to each other. Julia couldn't remember when the nonverbal conversations ended, replacing themselves with actual dialogue, but by the time Kady neared the end of the fifth book (a point she reached in just over two weeks), it was rare for the two to go longer than a minute without some comment about what they were reading.

And Kady was funny. The humor came effortlessly to her; she mindlessly read out passages, ending them with a snide remark that never failed to make Julia laugh.

Julia might not have found her own humor as easily, but Kady always giggled at her jokes, despite Julia's knowledge that most of them weren't nearly as hilarious as Kady's.

"So, that's it?" The curly-haired girl asked when she finally closed the last book of the series. "She just hides the button and they never go back?"

Julia pulled her nose from the literature she was browsing (Basics of Animal Linguistics Volume II) and nodded, the slightest of smirks perching on her lips. "That's it."

"That's a lame ending." Kady retorted without much thought, staring into space as if she was still trying to process what she had just read.

As usual, Kady returned the book to its shelf, tidied up the area she had been occupying, and sighed a huff of relief as she turned to face Julia.

"Well, that's three weeks I'll never get back." She scoffed and Julia mimicked the sound. Kady continued past the table the shorter girl was sat at, tucking a few curls behind her ears.

"See ya', Julia."

"Bye, Kady."

Julia didn't think twice about the standard closing to their conversation, but as the days rolled by, Julia never saw the mane of sloppy brown curls again, and she came to realize the words would be the last ones spoken between the two on the Brakebills campus.

It stung a bit at first when Kady stopped coming. Julia felt far too lonely in the empty library and even slightly angry that Kady had just stopped showing up without warning. It felt foolish to think Kady owed her an explanation, but Julia couldn't help but wonder if her original impression of the girl had been right all along.

She allowed the anger to build inside her until rumors surfaced of the particular girl on her mind. The rumors told that Kady fled the school, narrowly escaping expulsion, and dropped off the grid— one of the only students to ever willingly leave before their five years were finished.

The rumors tore the anger from inside her, filling the hole it left with confusion and sympathy over what could have happened and how terrible it must have felt to leave Brakebills in her last year, just months before she was set to graduate.

 

* * *

 

Julia left Brakebills, a cacodemon fresh under her skin, ready to face the world with a new notch on her belt. A notch that had been missing from her life since she was a young kid, scribbling doodles of mythical creatures and lands on the underside of an end table.

But the monotonous, dreary world around her made that notch feel more and more like a useless talent; something she spent five years learning, just to throw it away, seldom using it for anything besides a party trick or a convenient way to turn out a light when she was too lazy to get up. She easily lost herself in the grey, succumbing to sheer boredom and depression, before deciding that she had felt sorry for herself for long enough, and needed a new muse to keep her from going insane.

She stumbled upon an online chat room during one of her many dives into the wonders of online magic. It was an average-looking, elementary website— named Free Trader Beowulf for reasons unbeknownst to her— and where she first heard the term 'religious magic'.

The others in the chat knew her under the alias ViciousCirce, somewhat of an oxymoron, representing a goddess of magic, while also maintaining the status that she wasn't to be messed with. Not that anyone in the chat room would 'mess with' her. Everyone in the group was kind, always understanding and supportive of other opinions and ideas. They were truly a perfect team, no matter what the subject of their work was.

The established 'leader' of the group was a man under the pseudonym Failstaff, though everyone knew his true name to be Richard and called him by it. Richard was the one to bring up religion in the conversations, telling Julia about the way religious magic could potentially fill the void consuming her.

The others of the group actively agreed and supported Richards claim, and while Julia would usually laugh in the face of anyone who told her religion could save her, the knowledge student side of her felt incredibly drawn to the new layer of magic being revealed. And while most of the members had their own, important reasons for needing to summon a god or goddess, one girl, Asmodeus— meaning king of the demons, Julia found after a quick online search— claimed to only be in on the project to gain more power as a magician and learn spells that schools didn't teach. While she would never admit it, Julia instantly connected with the reasoning, not having a significant reason why she would need a god's help, other than her own selfish benefit.

Julia and Asmodeus clicked from the beginning, talking into the deeper hours of the nights, often venturing into other channels of chats to discuss irrelevant topics that the other members didn't care to join in on.

Not long into her arrival to the chat, the idea of meeting up was brought into play. Though the proposal initially caused some apprehension on Julia's side, the thought of meeting the people she had been talking to— nearly nonstop— for weeks, outweighed any anxiety that was felt.

Richard arrived inside her apartment before any other guests, greeting her with kind words and a tight hug. It sent sparks of excited electricity up her arms, because for once since leaving Brakebills, she felt purposeful; the grey she had been feeling was long forgotten.

Bender, Silver, and Menolly filed in one after the other, exchanging similar greetings and telling stories of their travels, until all five of them were spread out amongst the couches and chairs in Julia's living room, sipping soda and devouring slices of pizza (Julia couldn't cook and no one liked the idea of her attempting to make a meal, so delivery was the mutual decision they came to for lunch).

"Asmodeus is just coming from uptown." Richard explained a few minutes into the beginning of their greasy feast.

"It must be rush hour." Menolly tacked on, shaking her head at the reminder that, even though Asmodeus was the closest to Julia's home, she had somehow managed to arrive far later than those who came from all the way across the country.

It was all that was said on the topic before Menolly delved into the wonders of her experiences with medical marijuana, Bender interjected at seemingly planned intervals, offering his own two cents on the topic.

It wasn't until the group was lazily reclined on the sofas, bellies full of tomato sauce and pepperoni, that a knock sounded off of the wall that would usually connect her apartment to the one next door, but currently— through the miracle of magic— acted as a portal from any part of the world into Julia's dingy living room.

Her stomach twisted at the sound, suddenly realizing how nervous it made her to meet the girl she would comfortably consider her closest friend at the time.

Richard stood from his seat, wiping his fingers on the denim covering his legs, and mumbled something along the lines of 'if that's not her', starting up the spell he had used every time to pull the wall open.

The edges illuminated with bright blue light, as if a neon laser had started to cut the wall away from itself. Richard placed his hands on the newly detached piece of Julia's house and slid it to the side with little effort, revealing untamed brown curls.

An involuntary smile grazed Julia's mouth, only to fade away when she laid eyes on a face that made her wish she hadn't eaten so much pizza.

Kady Orloff-Diaz stared back at her, mirroring the expression of pure shock, while the rest of the group took to standing from the couches and hurrying to engulf the girl in warm hugs. Silver was the first to notice the staring competition taking place between the two, knitting her brows at the strange reactions.

"You look at each other like you've met before." She intended for it to be lighthearted, but neither of the girls found it funny.

"We have." Julia and Kady said simultaneously, just as Bender untangled his arms from under Kady's.

Julia's eyes were burning, the pain's origin unknown until she remembered how to blink and quelled the stinging.

Before knowing Asmodeus's true identity, Julia had fantasized about hugging her and getting to know her in person, but when she found the girl to be someone she already knew, the idea of doing either of those felt awkward, as if the girl she was staring at was someone completely different to the sarcastic, witty alias she had been speaking to online.

Still, Julia stepped forward and held her arms out, raising her eyebrows in a way that asked 'why not?' A smirk played at the corners of Kady's lips as she gave in, opening her arms and pulling the shorter girl against her chest.

The voices of the others faded from her mind, only able to focus on the tingles shooting up every part of her body that rested on Kady's.

By the time they finally parted (Julia didn't know how long she was holding the brunette, but it felt like only an instant, leaving her wishing for more), everyone had returned to their previous conversations, leaving the two girls to be the only ones left standing.

"You don't look like a king of demons." They held back from joining their friends on the couch, speaking quiet enough that only they would be able to hear. Julia meant for the observation to be humorous, and let out the small breath she was holding in relief when Kady laughed shortly at the words.

"You don't look like a—" Kady cleared her throat, wetting her lips before she started again. "You don't look vicious." She rephrased, as if she had changed her mind, last minute. Julia didn't have to think long on it to realize why, but when she did, her cheeks seared with heat, her lips tugging upwards. She forced her gaze to her feet in an effort to ward off any further embarrassment.

When the redness in her cheeks finally subsided, she brought her brown eyes back to the green ones beside her.

"I ordered pizza. There's breadsticks and soda, too." Kady's smirk remained steady as she nodded and ambled towards the cluttered coffee table.

And the memories were flooding back to Julia before she could stop them, drowning her in flashes of a quiet library, somehow turned loud from the conversations between two brunettes as they giggled at silly comments and anything else, simply because their laughs only made them laugh harder.

She didn't know there was a little piece of her heart missing since the days inside the library, but seeing a smiling Kady nibbling on pizza from the couch across from her, instilled a certain weightlessness inside her chest. It was a feeling she definitely wanted to get used to.

 

* * *

 

Summoning a god proved to be one of the most tireless tasks Julia had ever been given. Smarts were something that came naturally to Julia (she was a knowledge student for a reason), making the spell-casting aspect a breeze, but the tedious, taxing errands her and Kady were sent on almost convinced both of them to ditch the group and the idea of religious magic, as a whole.

Julia received her first 'sign' (in the form of levitation via spirit of a goddess) early into the process, instantly assured that the entire plot was not some hoax made up by a group of gullible religion fanatics, but Kady remained indifferent.

"Real or not, I've learned more with you guys than I learned in five years at that overblown school," was Kady's reasoning for sticking with the others through their efforts. Julia was just glad she wouldn't be losing the girl, again.

The primary tension between Julia and Kady wore off within the first couple days, their relationship reverting to the way it had always been in the lounge area of the Brakebills library. And when the plan had finally fallen into place— when Richard declared they were ready to start the ritual— the two girls had drawn so close, the thought of gaining extra magical power felt like an unimportant detail as long as they were together.

Something felt strangely unnerving as soon as the foreign chant began to vibrate through the walls of Julia's home, but it wasn't until Julia stole a glance at the figurine of the goddess in question and found it dripping blood from its ceramic eyes and nose that she wanted to call the whole thing off.

"Guys, stop. We should stop." She interrupted, disconnecting their hands and stepping into the middle of the circle they had formed. Bewildered gazes shot her way, slowly allowing the chant to taper off until it halted completely, leaving the group to scan their surroundings suspiciously. Before any of them had a chance to question Julia's sudden 'cold feet', the candles surrounding Our Lady Underground's (a name far too lengthy for anyone, even of a goddess, in Julia's opinion) figurine whooshed into grey smoke, as if an invisible breath had been blown in their direction.

"Julia." The uncannily familiar voice came from directly behind her— Julia could have sworn she even felt hot breath fanning over her neck and leaving raised bumps in its wake, despite the knowledge that no one had been there moments before. Julia spun on her heels and gasped when she found a well known woman in a pale, white dress standing on the wooden floors.

"Dumb, little witch," she shook her head deviously, a prominent glare cutting into the shaking girl in front of her. "You can't unring a bell." Laughter followed the phrase, echoing through the apartment.

Julia's heart drummed wildly against her ribs as the woman stepped away from her and began to stalk towards Richard. Julia turned her body to follow the movement.

"Richard." The goddess found her way to Richard's back, lifting two fingers and a cupped hand in preparation for a spell to be performed.

"Move! Richard, move!" The words narrowly escaped her throat before Our Lady Underground was tugging her cupped hand back, revealing a (still beating) bloody, red heart and a deep gash just to the right of the man's shoulder blade.

It was silent first, like her friends from the chat group somehow expected the whole scene to reveal itself as one big joke. It wasn't until the dark-haired woman brought the organ to her teeth and sunk them deep inside— Richard's lifeless body began to crumble under his own weight, eyes rolling back, his mouth a faucet of blood, spilling down his clothing and ultimately landing on the floor in splotches and puddles— when the others filled the silence with their own shouts and pleas.

The room became a hodgepodge of screams and shrieks, begging the carnivorous woman to stop, or for someone to stop her. Julia found Menolly, Silver, and Bender to be huddled together when she averted her gaze to take a hurried body count. Her eyes briefly caught sight of Kady sliding herself under an end table— the same end table that Julia had drawn maps of Fillory on in her childhood— gripping the legs with fear on her face, her eyes squeezed shut as if closing them was enough to make the scary happenings fade away.

Julia wasn't as easily comforted, and when her eyes returned to the pool of blood on her living room floor, Our Lady Underground had vanished, leaving a newly alive Richard to carry her yellow, snake-like eyes.

Again, silence reigned, each of them trying to construct a logical explanation for the chain of events.

"You'll find I've taken away your magic. So, there's no point in trying. You may address me as Reynard the Fox, trickster of the faithful, the pure of heart, the very stupid," were the words that dissolved the quiet. They were in Richard's voice, but Julia knew Richard would never say something like that. Richard would never have ended his sentence with a heinous laugh, lust in his eyes for nothing other than death.

Richard never would have killed Menolly, Silver, and Bender, leaving their conscious bodies to choke and sputter on their own blood.

Richard— not Richard, Reynard— looked for Kady next, but Julia had seen too many people die for one day, and, hell if she was going to lose the closest person she had to a friend.

She stopped him from finding her, and while the decision didn't play out in her own favor, Kady got away. She yelled for Julia to leave, first, as expected. Kady had always been the one trying to protect Julia.

But Julia was the reason they were in the mess to begin with. She couldn't let herself watch Kady take the blame. Not like the others had.

Julia wasn't sure when Kady scurried out of the apartment, but when the disaster was over, and Julia was left lying on the ground, clutching her stomach and crying tears into the pool of blood around her, the space under the end table was empty.

She tried to clean up the mess on her own, attempting spells that failed when they found the emotional state she was in. She didn't want to drag anyone into her problems; she'd caused enough damage. But as soon as her hands brought rags to the pools of blood, the thought of having to clean up the scene unassisted felt incredibly overwhelming.

Every bone in her body told her it still wasn't safe for anyone to be in her apartment. Reynard could be waiting just outside her door, prepared to kill the next thing that stepped beyond the doorway.

But she called the one person she hoped would come back and clean up the mess that was made— and the mess she had become.

Kady's number read across Julia's screen but when she clicked the green button at the bottom of the device, dial tones rung endlessly until they gave up and sent her to voicemail.

Kady didn't answer. Julia was alone.

 

* * *

 

_Next chapter:  Kady's eyes shined an electric blue. She was screaming, clawing at her skin as if there was a fire growing underneath it. The fire showed itself moments later, engulfing Kady in it's blinding flame. Julia was yelling, too, begging for it to stop, pleading with whatever was out there to not steal the last glimmer of hope— the only source of happiness— she had left in life. No one answered._


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter: Kady's number read across Julia's screen but when she clicked the green button at the bottom of the device, dial tones rung endlessly until they gave up and sent her to voicemail. 
> 
> Kady didn't answer. Julia was alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> listen... i got a little carried away. like, maybe, 5,000-words-more-than-i-expected carried away and now this is gonna have 3 parts ! hahaforgivemehaha
> 
> i SWEAR the 3rd part will be the final part and it should be up within the next couple days because i have most of it written, i just thought that close to 20,000 words was a bit much for pt.2 when pt.1 was only close to 5,000. 
> 
> so maybe just, call out sick from work, abandon your responsibilities for the day, grab a snack, settle in with a box of tissues and enjoy this excessively lengthy part 2!

The fear and regret morphed to bitterness. Julia no longer cried herself to sleep, shoving her face into a pillow to quiet her sobs. In fact, she rarely slept at all, anymore. Instead, she stayed up for days on end, scouring the web for information on Reynard, gathering every ounce of research in a red spiral notebook. And when her mind couldn't hold any more details on the trickster god, she devoted the leftover time to finding any proof that the girl who abandoned her the day of the attack was still alive.

She had little evidence, a few stories from the streets, talk of a girl performing miracles for a quick fix. It sounded enough like Kady for Julia to pursue the lead, but none of the tips included anything substantial enough to find an address. And she was getting tired of selling beer to the homeless for information she had already heard.

It was an early morning after an especially sleepless night that a knock came to her door. The sound reverberated in her mind, startling her from the half-sleep, half-scrolling-through-a-forum stupor, and pulled her back to reality.

Momentarily she pondered on the noise's origin, long forgetting the sound of knuckles against wood. She didn't get visitors anymore, anyway.

But when her sleep-deprived mind registered the fact that someone was standing outside her house, she jumped to her feet, eyes wide in anticipation.

Before she could rationalize it, every ounce of her being convinced itself that when she opened the door, she would find Kady behind it, wearing her signature smirk and open arms, ready to welcome Julia back into her life.

God, what she would give to have the taller girl wrapped in her embrace, one last time.

Her hands were working the lock and tugging at the doorknob as soon as they could reach, her breathing suddenly heavy and labored.

When the door was open, she dragged her eyes up a pair of baggy jeans and a stained t-shirt until they connected with brown eyes and short, scruffy hair. Her stomach dropped.

It was only Quentin.

"Why do you have wards up around your apartment?" He immediately asked, tapping his hand on his thigh nervously; a common activity for the awkward boy.

"Hello to you, too, Quentin." Julia growled, raising a few fingers and moving them in a complex pattern until the invisible shield around her home dissipated, allowing for Quentin to step inside.

Julia wasted no time reestablishing the barrier as soon as her friend was safely past the door, letting out an undetected sigh of relief when they were both locked in.

"I have so much to tell you." Quentin's eyes were wide with wonder, the effort being used to hold back his excitement was painstakingly obvious. She wanted to mumble 'me too' under her breath, but held her tongue, unsure if she was prepared to delve into the horrendous experience she had been through since leaving Brakebills.

Julia shoved piles of pizza boxes, soda cans, and dirty laundry from her couch, ignoring the disgusted glares from the boy beside her, and motioned for him to sit down.

"Fillory is real." He sputtered before his back had hit the fabric. Julia's eyebrows involuntarily heightened on her forehead at the claim. Had her mind not been in a million different places, she would have shown more enthusiasm.

Quentin didn't seem too phased by the uncharacteristic dullness and continued his explanation, spouting on about buttons and beasts and kings and queens and everything else that sounded vaguely familiar, as if Quentin had taken bits and pieces from the actual novel and morphed them into his own reality.

By the time he was finished spewing nonsensical details about the mythical land, he had caught on to Julia's disinterest.

"You're not as excited as I expected." His face scrunched up in confusion-- and possibly a bit of hurt. Julia heard him speaking but the meaning of the words were lost to her, easily getting jumbled up inside her mess of a brain. There was a long silence before Quentin spoke again.

"Jules," it was enough to pull Julia from her thoughts, but not enough to convince Quentin that her mind had just simply wandered.

"Sorry, I'm just-- I'm processing it." She half-lied, truly still trying to piece together the information, but not in the way the boy thought. Again, she didn't get far into her 'processing' before her thoughts took their own path, flashing brief moments of the memories haunting her in front of her eyes.

"Are you okay?" She wasn't, but she nodded, anyway, barely noticing Quentin had even begun to speak again. "You don't look okay."

Tears were forming in her eyes before she could recognize them, and she mentally cursed herself for allowing the emotion to slip past her eyelids. He noticed that, too, immediately scooting closer and placing an arm gently around her shoulders.

She couldn't cry in front of him.

That restriction didn't last long before tears were trailing down her cheeks, leaving shiny, transparent trails behind them.

Quentin repeated his question, receiving the same response.

They stayed in the position for a few minutes, the only sound between them coming from the quiet sobs shaking through Julia's chest.

"Something happened." She choked out, searching for the last bit of strength she needed to pull herself together.

It was her turn to talk. Her turn to explain everything that had happened since she left Brakebills. She started from the beginning, telling him of Free Trader Beowulf. She told him about Richard and Kady and religious magic. She told him about gods and goddesses and how summoning one proved to be the greatest mistake she had ever made.

He listened patiently, struggling to keep up when Julia came to the most gruesome part of the story. Yet, his face remained neutral as Julia recounted the scene-- her tears long since disappeared, leaving her numb, her mind on autopilot-- and she was thankful for the lack of sympathy. She didn't need his pity.

But when she was through explaining what went wrong-- what Reynard did to her-- she could see the compassion painting over his face and it was enough for her to realize she needed to stop it from furthering.

"This is my problem. I'm not letting you get involved." It felt forced. She wondered if Quentin could tell she was inwardly begging him to stay, begging him not to leave her alone any longer than she had already been.

"But Jules--" his arm pulled from behind her back, falling into his lap, as his eyes scanned her face rapidly for answers.

"No, Quentin." Her chest tugged as she said it, well-aware that Quentin was not one to push a subject. If Julia said he shouldn't, chances were, he wouldn't.

And by the looks of the expression taking over his body, Julia had already convinced him.

"Just-- go back to Fillory. I have to figure this out on my own."

Quentin protested the idea at first, claiming he couldn't leave her in the danger she was in.

Ultimately, Julia's retorts were enough to persuade him out of her apartment, with promises of him willing to do anything to help the situation. All she had to do was name what she needed, and he would be there. He wanted to help. Julia couldn't tell if the claims were sincere or just a cop-out of the uncomfortable circumstances.

"You're more important than Fillory." He assured her.

Julia didn't believe it, because if she was, he wouldn't have squeezed the button in his pocket, moments later, vanishing without another word.

She didn't need him, anyway.

 

* * *

 

After her run-in with Quentin, Julia realized she could not be alone any longer, figuring that she wouldn't be able to kill a god if she barely had the motivation to get out of bed.

Abandoning her research of Reynard, Julia furthered her search for a certain curly-haired girl, deciding she deserved to know whether the girl was still alive and purposely avoiding her, or if she hadn't made it out of the attack unscathed. Julia wasn't sure which option would hurt less.

The idea of Kady deliberately steering clear of Julia seemed to loom heavier over her already broken spirit.

But once Julia began to devote all of her time to finding Kady, the answers seemed to flow in effortlessly. Before long, she had a specific apartment complex pinned as a location of interest-- an address-less, abandoned building, well known for its staggeringly high crime rate. All Julia could think was: what the hell had her friend gotten herself into? And if she was in jail, Julia was going to kill her for being such an idiot. Well, first she would bail her out, maybe hug, then kill her.

The building was in the outskirts of uptown New York, unsurprisingly placed between, what Julia believed to be, the shadiest gas station she had ever seen, and an equally as eerie neighborhood park. At one glance, she found a slide with a gap of plastic missing in its center, and she was almost positive the swings had rusted into a permanently rigid posture. There was also a bench with no seat, just a backing, and a sandbox filled with more cigarette butts than sand, leaving it tinted an ashy gray. And that was the extent of the park. Certainly every child's dream to play on.

The abandoned apartment complex had one glass door in tact, the other covered with a cut up plastic tarp to act as a barrier from the outdoors. The closer she got, the more nervous she felt towards what condition Kady would be in.

Upon opening the better side of the double doors, Julia was immediately hit with the overwhelming scents of spray paint and smoke, forcing something between a cough and a gag from her throat. The sound of a baby crying met her senses next, instilling disgust deep inside her. The poor kid wouldn't even have a decent playground to run around at when it grew up. Unless it's idea of 'decent' included tetanus and splinters.

Julia encountered a room full of drunken persons, either on their way to passing out or already snoring on the moldy tile floor. It wasn't easy to spot a mess of brown curls amongst the bodies, considering the look seemed to be a common theme for the inhabitants. But when her eyes found a familiar face attached to the curls in question, her heart lurched at the sight, tugging some of her stomach contents with it.

Kady was leaned lifeless against a wall, forehead drenched in sweat, with one arm stuck out in a way that looked terribly uncomfortable. The closer Julia got, the clearer the needle marks became, confirming her mental suspicion.

She wondered if, perhaps, she wasn't the only broken one.

Stepping over a few bodies, Julia knelt down in front of the girl, desperately trying to control the shaking of her hands as she brought one to Kady's shoulder.

Her eyes couldn't focus enough to find if her chest was rising and falling, but she hoped her arrival wasn't too late.

"Kady," she spoke loud enough-- too loud according to the protesting groans of the others that followed-- to ensure that Kady would hear, her breath hitching in her throat when the brunette stirred slightly. "Hey," she tried again, this time using a gentler tone and bringing her hand to the girl's face and tapping it softly.

Her green eyes fluttered open, most likely too high to register any details of what was happening.

The movement was enough to make Julia's heart jump, again, unable to contain her excitement towards seeing her friend alive.

She refused to let herself dwell on the excitement, scooping an arm behind Kady's back and doing her best to pull the unsteady girl to her feet.

Kady tried to shove herself away at first, but soon realizing she was too weak to object, gave in and followed Julia out of the apartment, leaning on the shorter girl for support.

The cab back to Julia's was an equally as odd experience; the driver acted as if seeing drugged up girls in the back of his car was the norm for him. It probably was.

Finally arriving at their destination, Julia lugged Kady from the backseat, throwing a wad of cash at the driver without counting it, and yelling for him to keep the change.

Julia's heart began to pound out of her chest as she pushed her way through the front door of her apartment complex, memories of what had taken place weeks before replaying through her mind. The idea of Reynard finding her, once again, forced her to quicken her pace until the two of them were safely guarded behind the wards surrounding her home.

Kady must have noticed the change of scenery, suddenly gaining the strength to push Julia away and stumble her way to the couch, an inch away from missing the furniture and face-planting into the floor as she sprawled out on the cushions.

Julia soon realized how badly the other girl needed a shower, her slightly less disgusting house highlighting how terrible Kady smelled. She also knew how much more the brunette needed sleep, and Julia was not about to assist her in the bathroom as she washed off.

Julia fell into a recliner adjacent to the couch that was currently being used as Kady's bed, letting out a shaky breath as her body finally relaxed into the chair.

Kady was alive. And nothing else felt important.

Eventually, the unknown drugs (which Julia later learned to be heroin) filtered out of Kady's body, leaving her with a massive hangover and heavy confusion.

Initially, Kady was angry-- furious that Julia found her-- yelling at the shorter girl that she should have left her to die. The words seared into Julia's chest, like a hot knife stabbing her behind the ribs, leaving her to hope that the anger was just a side effect of the hangover, rather than a truthful outburst.

In between her shouts of rage, Kady would doze back to sleep, only to wake up moments later with another argument, until Julia couldn't take anymore and forced herself to find busywork cleaning up her messy apartment.

The silence only allowed her self-deprecating thoughts to fester; her fingernails were chewed to the skin by the time Kady had woken up in a mood far different from the one Julia was growing used to.

This new side was one filled with apologies and regrets, begging Julia to forgive her, and tearing up at the idea that Julia survived the terrible incident that took place. (Apparently, a high dose of heroin was all it took to make the strongest, most stoic girl Julia knew cry.)

Julia appreciated the sensitive side of Kady, far more than the irrational, irritable one, and even sat on the floor next to the couch as Kady shifted from conscious to unconscious. Julia held the pathetic girl's hands in her own and rubbed her thumbs along the tops so Kady knew she wasn't alone each time she broke the surface of awareness.

Every awakening brought Kady further from the high she was experiencing, and when Julia figured she was capable enough to support herself in the bathroom, she helped the brunette into a sitting position.

"You should shower. The bathroom's down the hall. I'll bring you a towel and some clothes." She spoke softly, still tracing her fingers along Kady's palms.

The brunette tugged one hand from her grasp, using it to wipe away the drying tears on her face and nodded slowly, pushing onto her feet, holding perfectly still until she gained her balance. After verifying that Kady was okay to make it to the bathroom unassisted, Julia hurried off to her bedroom to retrieve towels from the linen closet and articles of clothing that seemed most like something the girl would wear.

She met up with Kady in the bathroom-- thankfully, before she had begun undressing-- and placed the necessities on the sink. She started up the shower, setting it to an ideal temperature before placing a hand on Kady's shoulder, telling her to take all the time she needed, and hurrying out of the room.

She didn't see the girl until an hour later, eyes puffy and glossed over, the smell of sweat and smoke fading from her body and replacing itself with the flowery scent of shampoo and soap.

And when Kady did emerge from the bathroom, her demeanor had changed, yet again. She was quiet-- sullen, and unable to hold Julia's gaze. But when Julia asked, she claimed to be feeling better. The shorter girl found it hard not to believe, already noticing some humor starting to coat Kady's words. Humor she never thought she would hear again.

"Thanks," Kady muttered, suddenly returning her gaze to her feet and retrieving her previous glum expression. "For all of it."

Julia couldn't find the composure to do anything other than nod. 'You're welcome' didn't feel like an acceptable response to the gratitude.

"You-- you saved my life." Kady pursed her lips, nodding, too. "And," she stopped herself, probably noticing the build up of emotions threatening to spill past her eyes. "You know, I thought it would be okay to run. If I got the calvary and I came back to help you, but I--" Kady had to pause again, her chin quivering more and more with each word.

Julia could barely stand to watch the apology unfold. She didn't need an apology and seeing Kady on the verge of tears made it hard for Julia to stop herself from leaving her place behind the counter and enveloping the girl in a tight hug. She managed to refrain, however.

"I just ran. I hid." Her voice finally broke on the last word, but she disguised it with a scoff, averting her gaze to the granite that her elbows rested on.

"Yeah, well, there was nothing you could have done then." Julia spoke, finally stopping Kady from taking the monologue any further.

"But you can help me now."

The details were left unspoken for the time being, Julia, too drained to explain them, and Kady, too tired to listen.

Instead, Julia led Kady to her room, motioning to her bed to wordlessly invite her to sleep in it.

Kady didn't think twice about pulling back the blankets and sinking into the mattress, face-first, moaning something into the pillow that sounded vaguely like a 'thank you'.

And Julia didn't think twice about crawling in bed next to her. And while the two never closed the respectable distance between one another, just knowing and feeling the warmth of another body was enough to help Julia doze off and-- for the first time in weeks-- sleep soundly.

 

* * *

 

This peaceful resting was short-lived, however, interrupted after what felt like only minutes after Julia finally closed her eyes.

"Julia," the voice saying her name was masculine, holding a tone that spoke the urgent, yet irritated tone that the sleeping girl barely recognized to be from a psychic student she had met at Brakebills.

Yet, when she opened her eyes, she didn't find herself lying in bed. Instead, she stood in a room that looked somewhat similar to the place she had found Kady, but the details fumbled, getting mixed up and manipulated through the illogical dream world she was in.

Yes, she was definitely dreaming, she came to realize. And when her mind adjusted to the scene around her, the face she had been suspecting came into her line of sight.

Penny Adiyodi.

"What the--" were the first words to escape her mouth, sounding quite loud in her ears. The situation felt different from a dream somehow, like she was fully-awake, but only inside her mind. It felt terribly unfair that even sleep couldn't shut her thoughts off completely, but at that point, injustice barely phased her anymore. Penny stopped her-- holding his hand up-- before she could finish the thought.

"Yes, you're dreaming. Yes, I'm inside your dream. No, you're not high. No, you haven't been roofied. Does that cover everything?" He listed impatiently, counting on his fingers as he spoke.

Truly, it didn't. It only added to the confusion swelling inside her.

"I'm a psychic. I'm in your mind. Is it _really_ that hard to piece together?" Penny clarified, his eyebrows knitted together in distaste.

Julia felt like saying something along the lines of 'it's my dream, I'll take as long as I'd like to figure things out,' but held her tongue, settling on a slow nod, instead.

"Listen, Quentin's got something for you. A knife. He said it's powerful. Should be able to get you out of whatever the fuck you got yourself into." Penny continued, so obviously bored of the conversation that Julia began to wonder if it was possible to kick him out of her dreams. The topic of the discussion prevented the idea from developing, piquing Julia's interest (and her skepticism).

She expected her heart to begin beating rapidly, but the sensation never came; she felt surprisingly calm-- unaffected, even.

"But I can't travel past wards. So you're gonna have to take them down." The stipulation brought Julia back to her senses a bit, reminding her of the situation she was in, and how the god she was trying to rid the Earth of was a trickster. For all she knew, the dream could all be a scheme to get said god closer to the girl he was on the prowl for.

"How do I know this isn't a trick?" Julia mentally praised herself for the cynicism, proud of the fact that she was aware enough to doubt the claims, but also slightly hurt by the fact that she had to question the boy's intentions at all.

"I don't know and I don't care. Do you want the weapon or not?" Penny managed to grow more impatient as the seconds rolled by, telling Julia that the time she had left to make a decision was decreasing rapidly.

She did want the weapon. Because if it was what Quentin said-- powerful enough to fix her current problem-- why wouldn't she want it?

And she had been through enough in the past months that the possibility of things getting worse felt like an impossibility. She'd already hit rock bottom. There was no where to go from there, other than up.

After agreeing, Penny explained that he would wake her up, and that she needed to take the wards down immediately (only because Penny 'had better thing to do than sit around with his thumb in his ass, waiting to solve other people's problems').

He vanished as abruptly as he has appeared, leaving Julia alone in the dream-like world around her. It wasn't long before Julia could see the room fading from her sight, as if someone was tugging the image from her head. It dulled into blackness, darker and darker until Julia's eyes snapped open and she was laying in bed, the memory of the dream still clinging to her subconscious.

Without thinking, she jolted upright, her exhausted body instantly protesting the action, and forced herself to ponder on what she had just experienced.

Her eyes scanned the room until they landed on the sound-asleep brunette beside her, one arm tucked under her cheek, and the other curled at her side. An uncontrollable grin came over Julia's face as she stared at Kady, wondering how someone so troubled could sleep so peacefully.

But she shoved the question aside, remembering why she was awake at the ungodly hour and pointed her hands at the back wall of her bedroom, preparing to undo the wards surrounding it.

Her heart thumped loudly in her chest, each beat filling her with more apprehension towards the decision she was about to make.

Piecing together every last bit of courage scattered inside her, Julia shakily moved her hands in a way that lit up the invisible guard, twisting and turning her wrists until the wall dissolved, leaving Julia unprotected and unsure about the future outcome.

She whispered curses aloud to herself for a solid minute, squeezing her eyes shut and hoping-- begging something or someone that didn't exist-- for her choices to not prove to be the wrong ones.

A whooshing sound filled her apartment and she forced her nervous eyes open, almost feeling tears begin to form in them when she realized it was, in fact, Penny.

The psychic boy's eyes flashed between the floor and Julia, until they held a longer glance at the girl sleeping in the bed beside her. His face read an expression of confusion-- and Julia briefly remembered the two as a couple at Brakebills-- that quickly shifted to what Julia pinned as a mix of anger and hurt. He masked it before Julia could find any depth behind it, bringing his eyes back to her and flashing an eyebrow raise that questioned what had gone on the night before he arrived. Julia returned a face that probably advanced his speculations, though his ideas were certainly not correct.

"I could wake her up if you wanted to--"

"No, don't." He urgently denied. Julia had hoped the suggestion would irritate him. If he could tease her about sleeping in the same bed as his ex-girlfriend, the least she could do was return the favor.

"Just take your knife." Penny latched his hand around a sheath of leather tucked behind his belt, tugging out a black handle attached to a shiny, white blade. The appearance reminded Julia of opal. Otherwise, the weapon look fairly average, and Julia even found herself doubting the legitimacy of it's power.

He tossed the knife onto Julia's bed, both of their eyes focusing on it as it bounced on the mattress before settling into the deviation it made in the comforter.

"Don't get yourself killed." His eyes held steady to Kady as he said it, as if he had intended for the deeply asleep girl to hear it. Julia nodded a confirmation, still insecure in whether or not the order was directed towards her.

She didn't have the necessary time to clarify the misunderstanding, because Penny was shutting his eyes as soon as the words filled the previously silent room, dematerializing him from within it.

She knew it was childish to let giddy excitement set her hopes at an incredibly high standard, especially before doing the adequate research needed on the weapon, but she allowed the emotion to bubble inside her.

Nothing had changed, really. She was still going to attempt to kill a god. But something about the shimmery, slightly transparent blade made the ordeal seem far less confrontational. Like, she was still fighting the school bully, but now she had the principal tucked away in the corner, ready to hand out suspension slips if the chubby kid started to throw punches.

The research began almost immediately after Kady was filled in on the events of the morning (though Julia was unsure how much of the knowledge stuck with the hungover girl).

It wasn't hard to find answers, making Julia seriously question how she hadn't heard about a god-killing weapon weeks ago when she spent hours reading every article the internet spat at her about killing one.

Nonetheless, Quentin was correct in his claims. The weapon was rumored to hold enough energy to send a god or goddess to a painful grave, even going as far as to state that the knife in question was the exact kind used to rid Fillory of its ram-god, Umber.

But if the speculations were correct, Julia could kill Reynard. And her hands itched for nothing more than to watch the man-- who was currently hiding himself behind the body of Richard-- suffer the slow, painful death he deserved.

Kady didn't seem to mind the blood-thirsty reasoning, just smiling as Julia enthused on about possibilities of how they could go about the revenge.

"I owe you, anyway," was Kady's response when Julia explained that the entire plan would essentially be one grand scheme of wishful thinking.

It wasn't every day that Julia came across someone who was willing to risk their life for nothing more than a broken girl's revenge. She wondered what she did to deserve such a blessing in her life. Looking back, she didn't find anything worthy enough to suffice.

And if it took crashing with rock-bottom for Julia to feel so apathetic as to what would become of her if things went wrong, she wondered how low Kady had fallen to agree with the logic.

The details of the strategy they would use took days to work through, long hours filled with frozen pizza and energy drinks, working out kinks and snags until the final draft unfolded like a neatly ironed shirt-- no wrinkles.

And even when they were sure-- absolutely positive-- that nothing would impede their goal, they still worked tirelessly at the formula, considering every possible hiccup they could encounter.

They were proud-- excited, even-- when the night before they were set to put their ideas into action rolled around. Though, the excitement wasn't enough to drown out the constant anxiety looming over them.

"This is dangerous." Kady broke the bubble of silence surrounding the two as the lay in bed, on their backs, gazes fixed on the white ceiling above them.

The plan was to use Julia as bait. To lure Reynard into an alleyway using the original incantations said to summon him in the first place.

"No one said killing a god would be safe."

Reynard would show up, in all of his disgusting glory, and Julia's job was to stall. Hold him back in a way that would give Kady enough time to find her way to the same alley, an iridescent knife tucked away in her belt.

And she would offer a signal as soon as she was in range to throw the knife-- a skill Kady somehow already had knowledge in, prior to their situation, claiming it easy to sink the tip of a blade deep into someone a few yards away from her-- cluing Julia to duck out of the path of aim. It needed to be fluid. One concise movement. No room for hesitation. No room for error. Signal. Duck. Throw. In a split second, or Reynard could catch on.

And if the rumors had been _incorrect_ , the blow would still (hopefully) do enough to wound the god, rendering him weak enough to give them time to rush back to Julia's apartment, even if they needed a few spells of battle magic to hold him off their tails. Kady even managed to scrounge up a handgun and two bullets from a few deals made on the streets, and while bullets would certainly not kill Reynard, they could potentially hurt him enough to slow his pace even further.

It was a good plan. Truly, both girls felt confident in their parts, even if their stomachs twisted wildly at the idea of ever attempting the strategy.

"Can't I be the bait?" It was typical. Julia could have bet on her asking it. Of course she would rather risk her own life than let Julia do the same. It built her up in a way, reminding her that she wasn't alone as she felt. She had Kady, and while the girl didn't have much insight into the feelings Julia was experiencing, she tried her best to be sympathetic-- to give Julia space when she needed it, but always just a minute away, ready to offer the shorter girl a shoulder to cry on and a consoling hug if it's what she needed.

"He doesn't want you. He'd just kill you if he had the chance." Julia explained, squeezing the bottom of her shirt into a fist. The words had long left the bedroom before Julia spoke again. "But me--" she didn't have to finish for them both to mentally fill in the blank.

Kady released a heavy, exasperated sigh that ended in a quiet groan.

"We're really doing this, huh?" Kady masked the words thickly with disbelief, smothering any of the fear that would have shone through. But Julia knew the girl too well to fall for the affectation.

"Yeah, unless you're scared." She managed to find the bit of humor that was still easy to access inside her, collecting it in the words she spoke.

The taller girl scoffed at the implication, in a way that asked if Julia really thought she, of all people, was scared.

"How could I be scared when I'll have you fighting with me?" Kady was suddenly on her side, facing Julia in the queen-sized bed. It felt necessary for Julia to mirror the movement, flipping over until the two were staring, eye to eye, just inches from each other.

Julia didn't follow the question at first, unsure how Kady Orloff-Diaz could somehow feel more secure fighting with plain, old Julia Wicker. Kady clarified when she saw the look of perplexity spread over the smaller girl.

"You're vicious, remember?" Julia couldn't stop the smile or the playful eye roll from taking over the previous expression on her face.

God, she loved how Kady could add humor into any situation. She envied the skill.

A few flustered giggles later, the room was quiet, leaving Julia to stare into Kady's green eyes and contemplate how they seemed to grow brighter every day.

"Are _you_ scared?" Kady broke the stillness again, slightly catching Julia off guard with the inquiry. She wanted to feign bravery, act completely indifferent to the possibility of death, but something didn't feel right when she started to build up the facade.

"Honestly?" It was out of her mouth before she could stop it, but the feeling that washed over her wasn't regret. It was relief. Kady raised her eyebrows as if she were asking Julia why she _wouldn't_ answer honestly. "Yeah, a little." And she was never one to be so truthful-- so willing to open up-- but Kady seemed to hold the key that was needed to send Julia's walls crumbling to the ground, exposing the tender, vulnerable heart that hid behind them.

Said heart was pounding fiercely for an unknown reason. Julia wondered if Kady could hear it, and the thought only furthered when a hardly noticeable smile-- probably only seen by the smaller girl because of their close proximity-- spread across Kady's face. It didn't last long, quickly fading from the curly-haired girl's face until she was neutral and unreadable, once again. Kady propped herself onto an elbow, her hand pushed against the side of her face for support.

"Listen," Kady brought the other arm-- the one not holding her in a semi-upright position-- to Julia's hair, twisting a loose strand around her fingers as she spoke. "If something goes wrong, I just want you to know--" the green eyes fell slightly, landing their attention on the thin area of sheets between them.

"Nothing's going to go wrong." Julia cut her off. She couldn't allow herself, or Kady, to think about the risk. And when the green irises brought themselves back to the brown ones in front of them, Julia fully registered how close Kady was to her. The silence made the gap between them feel even smaller. Julia deemed it necessary to bring conversation back to the space to keep her heart from pounding any harder than it already was. "And I thought you said you weren't scared."

The teasing brought the signature smirk back to Kady's lips.

"I'm not. I'm just worried about you." The confession was enough to make Julia's heart flutter and she went as far as to wonder if not talking would've been a better idea to slow her heart rate. Kady averted her eyes, pulling her hand from where it was entangled in Julia's hair.

Julia followed the gaze, already missing the soothing sensation that spread through her scalp when the girl's fingers had tugged at the strands.

"Scared and worried are synonymous." She continued anyway, unsure where the sudden boldness was sprouting from.

A seemingly involuntary laugh escaped Kady's lips at the lighthearted jibe. It was, without a doubt, the most amazing sound to meet Julia's ears. It echoed through her thoughts until Kady speaking broke her from the trance.

"Shut up." She joked.

Julia was chuckling, now, too.

Both girls felt comfortable with the conversation ending there; Kady even let her eyes fall shut momentarily before they snapped back open and reconnected with Julia's as if the taller girl could tell she was still staring.

As usual, the absence of noise only heightened the fear building inside her, until it was overflowing, presenting itself as shaky hands and uneasy breathing that only seemed to calm itself slightly when Julia rolled to her previous position on her back. Kady failed to notice the sudden change in Julia's demeanor, instilling a familiar feeling of loneliness inside the anxious girl, but suddenly remembering that there was someone right next to her that could help, Julia reached under the blankets and patted her fingers along the sheet underneath until they found Kady's hand and snaked their way under it.

Kady didn't seem to mind, adjusting the grip and offering a tight squeeze of reassurance before scooting even closer.

Julia would have been perfectly happy to fall asleep in the position, but Kady must have had other plans.

Using her own hand to guide her, Kady led Julia into laying on her other side, facing away from Kady and at a window on the wall that shone dim moonlight through the thin curtains.

Only when Julia's back was pressed fully against Kady's stomach did the girl let out a quiet sigh, squeezing her hand one last time before letting the world around them fall still.

They barely slept throughout the night, not that the lack of sleep surprised either of them. How were they supposed to sleep with the idea that it could possibly be their last time in the bed at the forefront of their brains?

Either way, they both stayed in the position until the sun rose, just thankful to be close to one another. And despite the danger awaiting her in the morning, Julia couldn't have been happier.

 

* * *

 

Had Julia known her stomach would not only protest, but outright refuse the idea of having breakfast, she would have eaten a bigger meal the night before.

Her apartment was eerily hushed as the morning dragged along, both girls in no rush to hurry along the inevitable.

It was nearing eleven when Julia stood from her seat on the couch, declaring that if they waited any longer, she'd go into a nervous breakdown. Kady flinched slightly at the decision, probably thinking the same thing, just too afraid to say it.

The front door was only a few paces from the couch but Kady insisted on following her there.

They stared wordlessly at each other, desperate for one of them to speak first, but neither of them quite sure what constituted as an acceptable start to their goodbyes.

"Just be safe, okay?" Kady broke, the words spilling from her like the only thing that had been holding them back were her closed lips. Julia felt surprisingly secure and satisfied with the request.

"I'll try." Her hands were tucked into the pockets of the trench coat she wore, mostly to hide their fidgeting from sight and prevent Kady from thinking she was, at all, fearful. The response was tense, however; it felt indescribably awkward, as if they both had an idea of where they wanted the conversation to take them but-- yet again-- were too scared to take the initiative.

Something was missing.

Despite that, Julia lifted her hands in a way that had almost committed itself to her muscle memory, she'd done it so many times. The wards fell, washing a wave of familiar anxiety over the shorter girl. She wondered if exposing herself to the dangers of the world would ever get easier.

A long, knowing glance was shared between them before Julia reached her hand out for the doorknob, only to have it tugged away, seconds before her fingers collided with the cold metal.

The hand that stopped hers was clammy. It was shaking faintly, vibrating the wrist it held, until the taller girl tightened her grip to distract from her obvious nervousness.

"Wait,"

Julia _was_ waiting. She had been waiting, quite possibly since the day she retrieved Kady from the disgusting, drug-infested apartment. But even as Julia brought her line of vision back to Kady's face, she waited longer.

Kady was stalling; it was painfully obvious. She opened her mouth to speak, closed it, opened it again, closed it again. Honestly, Julia was suffering second-hand embarrassment, just from watching.

So, she took the first step.

Pushing onto the tips of her toes (at coincidentally the same time Kady gave a short tug on her hand), Julia tilted her head to the side and closed the gap between their lips, holding back from gasping when the connection was made. It was slow and clumsy at first, both girls testing the waters before diving in and allowing their lips to move in sync, getting lost in the symphonies it created in their heads.

The kiss lasted for all of a few seconds, but when Julia pulled away, her breathing was so rapid, she could have convinced herself they had been kissing for hours. Kady's breaths shared the same quickening pace, her body managing to shake even more than before.

"Do more than try." Kady untangled her fingers from Julia's offering a sad smile to make up for the emotion that was slipping to the front of her eyes.

Julia nodded, pulling her bottom lip between her teeth, while actively wishing it wasn't her own teeth tugging at the skin. Her mouth was still tingling as she turned away, again, only this time, a hand left her grasp, rather than entering it.

And moments later, Julia was out the door, suddenly unsure if revenge was what she truly needed to feel better anymore.

 

* * *

 

The alley welcomed Julia with the smell of rotting wood and stagnant sewage. It looked like the type of area Kady would have hung around when she was strung out on heroin. But soon, it would be the location of an epic battle between two girls and a despicable, rapist god, where only one party would leave victorious.

Julia pulled back the coat covering her tight-fitting v-neck, reaching into one of the inner pockets and revealing a thick chunk of white chalk. Clumps detached and crumbled through the spaces in between her fingers, bouncing on the cement below. She kicked away the pieces as she bent over, pressing the powdery substance against the ground and dragging it into a design that would doubtlessly look like useless graffiti to most, but to Julia, it held far more meaning.

The memories of the only other time she found herself drawing the pattern flashed through her head, turning her stomach sour and her hands shaky.

The last time she found herself standing in a white, drawn circle, she was left with jagged edges and broken pieces of herself. That, and a whole list of regrets. She just hoped history wasn't planning on repeating itself.

Her back was pressed against the cool brick behind her, feet planted stiffly in the space uncolored inside the circle.

After a steadying breath, she was calling out the menacing incantation, pausing frequently to clear her throat or swallow, in an effort to calm the trembling in her voice.

Even with her eyes squeezed shut, Julia recognized when the man she was summoning arrived, the bumps spreading up her arms coinciding with that recognition. And when she snapped them open, Reynard stared back at her, yellow, reptilian eyes glaring daggers into her.

His eyes squinted, hungry expression faltering momentarily, before his hand was around her neck, shoving her harder into the wall she was already pressed against.

Even if the overpoweringly strong grip hadn't been impeding her ability to take a breath, Julia still wouldn't have been able to breathe, too consumed with paralyzing fear to do so.

Reynard's hot breath fanned over her face as he held her, but neither spoke, allowing the alleyway to grow intimidatingly quiet.

Seconds passed disguised as hours, leaving Julia to wonder what the hell was taking Kady so long.

"I know about your little plan." He growled before the thought was able to cultivate any further. The statement sent new forms of fear bubbling through Julia's blood.

And if he knew about the plan, was he expecting the curly-haired girl to come blazing into the shady alley, ready to impale him with a weapon that would end him once and for all?

His face drew closer to Julia's until he turned it and focused the attention on her barren neck, the cold tip of his nose brushing against the exposed skin. It was a feeling Julia never wanted to remember; Reynard's body against her own. She could hardly wait to drive a deadly knife inside the man and watch him gradually bleed out.

A slow, exaggerated breath sucked in through his nostrils. He groaned revoltingly at the smell.

"I'd forgotten what fear smelled like on you." He purred into her ear, sniffing in again as his regard trailed to her collarbone, then her shoulder.

The pain that spread through her arm moments later, didn't register immediately. Instead, it took a glance at her shoulder that caught sight of white teeth sinking into the skin for Julia to finally feel the searing heat radiating down her arm, into her fingertips.

The yelps of agony echoed through the alley, forcing Julia's eyes shut as if the ability to see had a direct correlation to the amount of pain she would feel.

And it was thanks to that lack of sight that Julia missed a certain green-eyed brunette sprinting down the path, desperately waving her hands and offering the agreed upon signal to the shorter girl against the wall.

Only when Kady called out, demanding for Reynard to let go of her, did Julia's eyes snap open, landing on the girl that arrived just a few seconds too late.

The command only added to the god's anger, though it did have its desired effect. Reynard dropped his hand from Julia's neck, allowing her to fall to the cold cement below, clutching her upper arm and groaning through gritted teeth. And though the wound pouring blood from behind the cuts in her shirt didn't feel all that deep, it must have sunk far enough below the skin to render any movement of her lower arm impossible. Or she was just far too overwhelmed by the pain for her body to even consider moving the limb. It was unclear which possibility reigned as most likely to be the truth.

His hands now free, Reynard focused his next spell on Kady, lifting one and thrusting it forward, sending the taller girl flying into the opposite wall, quite similar to the position Julia had been in moments ago. She was grabbing at something invisible around her neck, mouth agape as if she were choking. And she was. Though Reynard's hands were far from Kady's body, he had somehow managed to conjure a spell that pinned her against the bricks, obstructing her airways and holding the tips of her toes just centimeters from the ground.

Even suspended in mid-air, Kady's hand found its way to the sheath attached to her belt. In one fluid movement, the shimmering blade was uncovered, pointing ominously at the fairly amused god in the middle of the alley.

Julia was unsure of the mechanics, but with a few flicks of the fingers on his other hand, the grip appeared to tighten, labored coughs being the only sounds escaping Kady's darkening lips.

"Drop the weapon, Kady." His sickly delighted smile burned a permanent image in Julia's eyes and she was almost positive the experience was no different for the other girl.

It wasn't long before Kady's face began it's skew from normal, humanly colors to a far less typical, blueish hue. She was suffocating. And Julia refused to watch it happen.

"Drop it, Kady!" Julia found the strength to yell across the space between them.

Kady's eyes-- which happened to be growing heavier by the second-- met hers in an instant, scanning her face in search for the answer to whether or not it was okay to surrender the only tool they had that could kill the god. Whatever emotion that was splayed across Julia's face gave Kady the confirmation she needed to allow the weapon to fall from her grasp.

As expected, Reynard dropped his hand, too, unraveling the spell that held Kady against the wall-- she sputtered and coughed, gasping for air and sending Julia looks of pure terror and regret-- before he was breaking into a different set of hand gestures. Hand gestures that left the newly unclaimed knife levitating in the air, spinning sluggishly like a piece of meat, skewered on a metal rod, roasting over an open flame.

With a few short chants that Julia recognized to be Latin, the knife erupted into a cloud of dark smoke, fluttering to the concrete as specks of ash.

It was just a bad dream, Julia found herself thinking. She was still in bed, Kady's arm draped comfortably over her chest, the girl's untamed curls tickling the back of her neck. Their plan was flawless. There was no way it could have gone so wrong. She was just living out her mind's uncertainty in a terrible, realistic nightmare. She was going to wake up any second with warm hands brushing against her sweaty forehead, promising her that everything was alright and that she was safe in the tight embrace of Kady's arms.

But the awakening never came, and when Julia brought her watering eyes up to the panting girl across from her, she found terrified irises staring back at her.

Kady's eyes seemed miles deep, and the further Julia looked, the more she saw of a green-tinted landscape of pain. Pain that spoke the words too lengthy to say in the split second between realizing things hadn't gone according to plan and deciding to make a Hail Mary decision in hopes that it would save them both.

Kady's eyes were apologetic at their core, even if the outer layers displayed the fear and discouragement she was truly feeling. Kady knew.

Julia knew, too.

There was no easy way out of their situation.

Julia knew whatever Kady had in mind would be deeply flawed, at best. She knew that the second Kady returned her gaze to Reynard, she was as good as gone, no matter what tactic was deployed. Reynard would kill her, then take Julia as his main course.

Julia's mouth opened to yell for Kady to run, but the words caught in her throat and never surfaced, because before they could, Kady's determination returned its aim to the god in front of her. Her hands were moving hastily, mumbles falling from her lips in such a hushed tone that Julia couldn't make out what the girl was saying.

Whatever it was, Kady had never done it before, yet she was surprisingly confident in her gestures, fumbling hand over hand, winding up some sort of spell that seemed far beyond her expertise.

And Reynard didn't try to stop her. He just laughed, taken aback at the fact that some human was actually attempting to kill him with magic.

Julia was confused, too. Kady should have known that the man in front of her could snap her neck in one effortless swipe of a finger. But she continued building up the energy in her body, ready to send whatever ball of fire she was conjuring flying towards the amused man.

It didn't make any logical sense.

Not until Kady's breath began to quicken, her fingers illuminating with sparks of light. That's when it clicked for Julia.

She was turning into a niffin.

"Kady, no." She meant for it to be shouted, but what came out instead was too quiet for even Reynard to hear.

And when Kady looked up from the magic swirling above her arms, Julia was too overcome with shock to attempt the call again.

Kady's eyes shined an electric blue. She was screaming, clawing at her skin as if there was a fire growing underneath it. The fire showed itself moments later, engulfing Kady in it's blinding flame. Julia was yelling, too, begging for it to stop, pleading with whatever was out there to not steal the last glimmer of hope-- the only source of happiness-- she had left in life. No one answered.

Kady descended deeper into the heat until she was surrounded, her face long lost behind the intense brightness, the fire's deafening roar masking any of the shrieks for help coming from inside it.

But as gradually as the blue flames built up, they extinguished in an instant, transforming into wisps of lightly-tinted smoke, until the exact spot where Kady had been standing succumbed to vacancy, leaving the emotionally and physically injured Julia to fend for herself.

Julia wanted to be angry at Kady, because history had truly began to repeat itself. Things went wrong and Kady fled the first time, and the current events seemed to correlate strongly with the past.

Twice. That would be twice that Kady left her, alone and damaged, unsure what the powerful god would do with her now that he had her exactly where he wanted her.

The amused, maniacal laughter continued its monopoly over the silence, ringing through what little Julia could hear past the thunderous beating in her chest.

Spinning on his heels, the gleaming yellow irises connected with her own as he sauntered to where she lay, blood pooling under her arm.

"I thought you were smarter, Julia." He feigned hurt, bending over with his hands on his upper legs. Their faces were close enough; Julia could probably spit at him if she aimed correctly.

So, she did. The saliva hit his chin, barely filling her with any satisfaction, and only made him laugh harder.

She hoped he was angry at her. Hoped he would skip all the torture and just get on with killing her. She was ready to die. In fact, there was nothing more that she wanted in that moment than death.

He straightened, swiping away the spit on his face with the back of his hand and sighed, contently.

"I was going to leave you alone. But since you called for me--"

She swore all she did was blink, but when her eyes reopened, Kady was there, standing behind Reynard with blue-toned fury written on her face. The blood loss must have been making her delusional.

That's what she thought, at least, until Reynard noticed the figure in his vicinity, his feigned expressions hardening to true fear.

Again, the intentions behind Kady's action revealed themselves clearly to Julia in that moment.

Now, a niffin-- essentially a being of pure, unadulterated magic-- Kady cocked her head curiously at Reynard, who held a good, few inches on her height. She didn't express any intimidation.

Julia choked on her words as she attempted to call for Kady one last time, watching as the niffin spread out her fingers on one hand, letting each blood vessel swell with electricity that sparked static as it grew.

She could _hear_ the magic intensifying until it was loud enough to drown out the words that Reynard seemed to be saying to her.

Julia hoped he was begging for her to be merciful. Hoped his life was flashing before his eyes as he pleaded. She hoped he saw every single terrible act of hate he committed, and she hoped he felt guilty.

Storm clouds were swarming as if Kady had been conjuring all the lighting in the world, ready to send its energy into the man in front of her, frying him to a crisp.

And when she lifted her hand into the air, her breathing was heavy, her cheeks puffing out with each forced exhale through her gritted teeth.

The glowing hand shot into Reynard's chest, filling him with violent shakes and jerks until he fell to the ground, blood and foaming spit seeping from the corners of his mouth.

But for some reason, staring at the god, no longer breathing on the alley floor, Julia only sobbed louder, turning her face to the cement and pressing her nose against it as if pushing hard enough would cause the ground to open up and swallow her whole, saving her from the state she was in.

Of course, the ground cruelly denied that request, leaving her a shivering mess on the pavement.

Kady was coming closer, body still ablaze in light, so luminous that Julia had to squint when she returned her eyes to the girl.

The same, curiously mischievous air surrounded Kady as her hand began to light up, again, this time with the intention to use it on Julia.

"Kady," she finally sputtered, incredibly confused as to why the towering girl would suddenly want her dead, too.

And Julia wanted to die, but not by Kady's hand. Kady didn't deserve to have her blood tainting her no-longer-existent conscience.

But Julia was rendered useless, at that point. Niffins could kill gods, and all Julia had left was a lightly-loaded handgun.

Her upper back itched, directly beside the oozing wound on her arm. It burned like a hot coal was resting directly on top of the star-shaped tattoo between her shoulder blades. A star-shaped tattoo that had been purposely bestowed upon her for dangerous situations-- ones that looked bleak with no sign of making it out alive.

The condition she was in seemed to match that description precisely.

A cold, painful breath gathered in her lungs as she prepared to speak.

"Julia says go free." The aftertaste of the words clung to the inside of her mouth, which suddenly felt far too dry for her liking.

There was no discomfort that followed, just the sensation of her already torn shirt ripping further, unveiling the shadow-like entity beneath it.

Kady's inquisitive expression faded, morphing to straight up disbelief, as if she hadn't considered the idea that Julia would have a secret weapon up her sleeve (or imprinted on her back).

Julia couldn't watch the scene unfold, forcing her eyes shut as the cacodemon enveloped Kady in its being, refilling the alley with shrill screams.

It lasted for minutes, but dragged on in Julia's mind for far long after the space fell silent.

Reynard was gone, but Kady was gone, too, and nothing felt real anymore. She was numb as she lay on the bloody ground, each gasp for air building up to another choked cry.

She had lost everything. Her happiness, her friends, her will to live. Her Kady.

There was no coming back from the depression encompassing her.

 

* * *

 

 _Next chapter: But as the days passed, the words became harder to ignore, burying themselves deep below the surface of the tough facade Julia was attempting to hide behind. Kady was breaking her._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you guys thought this was bad you probably won't survive pt.3 
> 
> so go ahead and recover from this for a few days and then i'll hit you with some real bad angst. until then, i'm @bestbltches on twitter if you wanna party


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter: Reynard was gone, but Kady was gone, too, and nothing felt real anymore. She was numb as she lay on the bloody ground, each gasp for air building up to another choked cry. 
> 
> She had lost everything. Her happiness, her friends, her will to live. Her Kady. 
> 
> There was no coming back from the depression encompassing her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh my god, the final chapter... for real this time. TOO MANY FINALES THIS WEEK. 
> 
> this one was a real struggle to write, honestly, i probably spent days just planning out the scenes and rewatching all the niffin!alice content from the season for research. 
> 
> i hope my efforts paid off (; 
> 
> i wrote this chapter to the album My Tears by Callie lol jk but i truly did cry while writing this and when i reread this chapter i full-on sobbed. so i'm right there with you all (:
> 
> and if you hate me when this is over, i probably deserve it and agree with you!

The first time Julia saw Kady after her death, she was drunk. So, so drunk that it would take a full day for the memory to return in its entirety.

And even when it did, Julia didn't believe it. It was just a side effect of the buzz. A coping mechanism in the form of a hallucination. It had to be. Kady was dead, no matter how hard it was for her drunken mind to register.

But the probable figment of her imagination didn't fade away as her hangover wore off. It only made Julia question her sanity even more, each time she caught a second's glance of untamed curls and jade green eyes.

The next time Julia found the very-alive looking Kady, she was lying in bed, on the verge of falling asleep, but strikingly sober.

Kady was leaned comfortably against the windowsill across from Julia's bed, staring out into the dim-lit streets below as if it was perfectly normal for her to appear in Julia's room, just days after the mourning girl had released the cacodemon that killed her.

"Kady?" The figure looked so real; Julia could see every detail in her long, tangled curls and they were just how she remembered them. Even if she couldn't see a face on the person, Julia would have known it was Kady from a mile away.

And when the figure did turn, she found her speculations to be correct, Kady's face revealed itself, moonlight shining on one-half. The signature smirk that Julia had grown to love was present on her lips, but faded to neutralization when the shining green eyes connected with her own.

"Is that really you?" Julia choked on the words as she spoke them, desperately attempting to hold back the tears threatening to spill down her face.

She would have given anything to hear Kady talk-- to be able to talk to her. She had so much to say, but somehow none of the words surfaced, leaving Julia to stare silently at the uncharacteristically quiet girl by her window.

Kady started towards the exit to Julia's room, dragging her fingers along the wall as she walked, as if she hadn't even heard Julia's questions. Or perhaps she was ignoring her.

And Julia just watched, unable to move-- unable to think-- until Kady was out the door, disappearing down the hall.

When Julia's mind finally registered what she had just seen, she threw the blankets off her legs and rushed to the door at the front of her room, hissing loudly at the heat that radiated through her still healing shoulder. Breathing heavily, she entered the hallway, her eyes searching the space in front of her frantically, struggling to find anything resembling the girl she was looking for. She was only met with darkness.

The hallway was empty.

And Julia had never been more convinced that she was succumbing to insanity.

Because she had witnessed Kady die. She heard her screams as the cacodemon tore her to shreds. And while Julia's prior knowledge of niffins reminded her that live niffins were free to roam the Earth, the niffin that seemed to be haunting her was definitely dead, which meant she was almost certainly going crazy, or there was something completely unbeknownst to Julia about what happens to a niffin after it dies.

Her breathing was heavy and hasty as she shakily found her way back to the bed inside her room. It didn't feel right sleeping in it; it hadn't since the day in the alley, but sleeping on the couch somehow felt worse. The bed held memories with Kady, but the couch was placed directly in the center of a room that held memories far more intimidating.

Julia sat on what used to be Kady's side of the bed, gripping the blanket in one fist as if it felt anything like the warm hand she used to hold while falling asleep. It didn't. It was cold and rough and didn't squeeze back or rub its thumb across the top of her hand until she dozed off.

Her eyes fell upon a day-old glass of water on the nightstand-- she had brought it in by accident, she was probably lightly drunk, but buzzed enough to forget that the usual recipient of the water no longer resided in her home-- and her mouth suddenly felt awfully dry. Unclenching the fabric from in her hand, she reached for the cup and brought it closer to her lips. It was just inches from her face when she stopped, her stomach already vetoing the idea of having anything inside it. She never had an appetite, anymore.

Julia hated herself for being so affected. She wished she could go back to the way life was-- continue living her life as if there wasn't a gaping void in her chest. But there was never a moment when she wasn't emotionally in pain.

And, now, to add insult to injury, one of the main reasons for her suffering wouldn't stop appearing at her window, or behind her in the mirror, or across the street in a busy crowd.

The world was either terribly ironic or had no sense of irony whatsoever. Julia hated it either way.

The cup in her hand stung as she held it. She wasn't thirsty anymore. Not for water.

She groaned pathetically, leading into a struggled cry, and her grip on the cup tightened. She could have crushed it in her grasp if she wanted, but the idea of slicing her hand on shards of glass didn't sound like the way she wanted to end her night.

She did end up shattering the glass, however, sending it flying across the room into a wall, where it crackled and splintered, falling as a mess of water and debris on the floor.

It was strangely comforting, but the tears were still flowing freely down her cheeks. She wiped them away as quickly as they fell, burying her face in her hands and sighing loudly.

The endless questions swirling through her mind made her head especially heavy. She fell back against Kady's pillow, inhaling the familiar scent that came from it, and closed her eyes.

But sleep never made an appearance through the night.

 

* * *

 

Julia's alumni key to Brakebills had been left untouched in a box under her bed since the day she left the school. She'd never had a reason to return to the campus; the only friends she made at the school had graduated with her, and once they were out of sight, they were out of mind. She didn't want to meet up with most of them, anyway.

But when the necessity to research a problem that Google wouldn't be able to give her the answers on arose, the room below the attic she lived in for five years seemed to be the best place to find those answers.

Julia arrived inside the school's library as the sun began to set, hoping that the later hour would ensure that she wouldn't run into anyone. But when she walked past the glass double-doors, students littered the area, noses buried in lengthy books and newspapers as if the library had become the new, much-less-exciting version of the physical kid's cottage. Either that, or Brakebills had seen a very recent influx in knowledge students.

Their eyes barely wandered from their texts as Julia made her entrance. She scanned the familiar room slowly, cold nostalgia washing over her as her gaze fell upon a certain couch-- one that had once held a mane of unkempt brown curls.

But the girl that she found laying on it that day had heavily straightened, blonde locks, and the way she held herself gave off vibes of haughtiness, rather than the unaffected, natural confidence she was used to. It felt wrong to see the girl on what used to be Kady's couch. The one that Kady sat on for weeks during their last year at the school, back when nothing mattered and the only stress Julia had in her life was whether or not she was going to pass her end of year exams.

She strongly apposed the idea of remembering details of the time, but the thoughts were already spilling into her mind like an overflowing bucket of memories.

_Julia didn't have any reason to be in the library that night, and if she was being honest, she was incredibly tired and would have rather spent the time in bed, catching up on the significant amount of sleep she had been missing since her nightly visits to the library began. But Kady was nearing the end of the second Fillory book, and Julia definitely didn't want to miss her chance to discuss the ending with the girl._

_At that point in their relationship, conversation was beginning to feel like a normal occurrence throughout the nights. They didn't talk very often, only if Kady had a question or wanted to rant to someone about the scene she had just read. Julia just happened to be the only one in the library to hear those rants. And going to bed early meant she might miss one of those tangents that she loved so much._

_Julia found her usual seat in the empty library as the clocked neared ten o'clock, long past its typically busy hours._

_Kady usually showed up around the same time, but for some reason, that particular night, Julia was left sitting alone long after the shorter hand on the clock hovered over the number eleven._

_Part of her wanted to leave, and she probably should have, but the other part of her was repeating 'one more minute' to itself every minute until the double-doors flung open, revealing the disheveled brunette behind them. Julia could practically see the irritation radiating from the girl._

_"Sorry, rough day," were the first words to come from Kady and Julia wasn't sure whether the apology was towards her violent opening of the door or the fact that she was showing up far later than usual._

_"And yet you still came to the library?" Julia knew that they kind of had a system going, but the fact that Kady had deemed it necessary to show up, even on a day that she was clearly unhappy, instilled a sense of something-- she couldn't place what-- inside Julia's chest._

_"And yet you're still waiting here?"_

_Julia tipped her head in a way that said 'touché,' as if the comment wasn't sending hot sparks through her cheeks. Kady didn't push the subject any further._

_"I guess reading just calms me down. I don't know." Kady found her way up the steps to the bookcase and mindlessly found the book she had been reading for the past few days._

_She felt a little bad for seemingly forcing the explanation out of Kady. But the contents of the statement outweighed any of the negative emotions she was feeling._

_She always knew Kady had a soft spot for reading. No matter what punk-girl facade she was attempting to live up to._

_Kady plopped down on the couch, allowing her head to fall against the arm momentarily, before sitting up straighter and opening the novel to the page she had left off on, and starting to read._

_Julia didn't expect Kady to be very chatty considering her sour mood, and found those expectations to be correct as the minutes past._

_It was a solid half-an-hour before Kady finally did decide to initiate a conversation._

_"What does lack-- lacka--" Kady cocked her head to the side, eyes squinted as she tried to read a word written on the worn page. "I'm not even gonna try to pronounce it. What does this mean?" She gave up, pointing to a word in the book. She followed up the question by reading out the spelling of the word, letter by letter, but Julia was already leaving her seat, finding her way to the space beside the couch and kneeling down, scanning her eyes along the paper._

_It happened often that Kady didn't have knowledge of a word's definition and she seemed to figure out early on that Julia almost always held the answers to her questions. Usually it was especially long or outdated words that were beyond her comprehension-- words like 'melancholy' or 'salubrious'-- but every once in a while it would be a word that Julia would have thought everyone knew the meaning of-- 'lurid' or 'innate'-- and it never failed to make her giggle when Kady would struggle to understand them._

_Frankly, Julia thought it was adorable._

_"What word?" Julia held back the smile from growing too wide on her lips._

_"That one."_

_Julia unsuccessfully stifled a laugh when she saw what was hindering Kady from continuing her reading._

_"Lackadaisically." Julia could see the girl on the couch tense slightly, tugging the book back to her lap. "It means unenthusiastically."_

_"Great, I'll add it to my list of words I'll never use." Kady mumbled, returning her vision to the few pages left in the novel._

_"You're very lackadaisical about the word 'lackadaisically'." Julia straightened from her squatting position, hoping the remark would at least be enough to draw a smile to Kady's face._

_She received far more than she had bargained for when Kady broke out into uncharacteristic laughter, shaking her head and rolling her eyes at the shorter girl._

_"Alright, I get it. You're a knowledge student." She shot back playfully._

_The giggles died down after a minute or so, allowing silence to reclaim the room._

_It must've crossed over into the next day by then, but Julia didn't dare sneak a glance at the clock behind her, afraid it would give away how much she desired to be upstairs, asleep in bed._

_But Kady only had a few pages left. And Julia could stick it out for a few more pages. Even if her eyelids refused to hold themselves open._

_Finally-- Julia thought she would erupt in cheers-- Kady pushed the book closed with an exaggerated sigh through closed lips and stood from the seat, stretching her arms above her head with a yawn, exposing the area just above the waistband on her pants._

_She wanted to look away but she couldn't. She just stared and by the time she realized that her gaping was probably seen as strange, Kady was already done stretching, sporting a smirk and an eyebrow raise towards Julia._

_The taller girl turned away before most of the heat collected in Julia's cheeks, trudging back to the bookcase to return the book._

_But when Kady walked back, she wasn't empty-handed. Instead, the third Fillory novel dangled by its spine from her grip as she returned to the couch and fell back into the cushions._

_Apparently, Kady had no intention of ending her reading early._

_It was going to be a long night for Julia. But she didn't think the idea of losing sleep bothered her too much._

She blinked away the scene from her mind, realizing how strange she must have looked towards the students, who were suddenly staring at her with curious expressions on their faces. The one on Kady's couch-- which also happened to be the one that Julia's gaze was locked on-- eyed her suspiciously, readjusting her position self-consciously before tucking back into the book in her grasp.

Julia lowered her head, hoping to avoid any further attention (and hide the tears welling in her eyes) and hurried to a wall covered end-to-end with tiny drawers.

It was the school's own Dewey Decimal System. Students would call out a topic and the enchanted wall would spit out where to find any books that held information on what they were looking for. Julia was no stranger to it.

The moment her feet were firmly planted directly across from it, she started speaking.

"Niffins." She called out, well-aware that the library had fallen silent since she had walked in; the students all too entranced by the older girl to continue their conversations.

But as soon as she started to speak, the inhabitants' whispers began to fill the space. Julia didn't have to see them to know that the looks on their faces were nothing other than horrified.

Three drawers flung open, shooting out one paper each, which Julia grabbed quickly before finding a seat to look over the information she had been given.

It was obvious she had scared the students, ones that had probably only heard niffins spoken of as a legend-- something that could quite possibly be real, but since no one had ever seen one, it was just labeled as mythological. Julia remembered when she was under the same impression.

But she didn't care that her research was causing a scene. The students needed to know magic didn't just consist of glass marbles and playing cards. It was scary and dangerous and wasn't always performed behind the safety of a magic school's complex wards. She wished she had known as much.

Surprisingly, Julia was able to find the necessary material on the subject fairly easily, leaving her with plenty of time to read over the books.

She would have sat in her usual seat, but she couldn't. The idea hurt too much. So she settled for a long, six-seated table in the corner of the library. The two other Brakebills students at the table instantly fabricated a reason to leave to one another, suddenly uncomfortable to be sitting near Julia.

Good, she wanted to be alone.

The books all held a similar appearance, much resembling notes kept by someone in a very outdated notebook. As if someone had just written down their own personal experiences with niffins. It didn't at all look trustworthy, but Julia read it nonetheless, deciding it was better to have possibly false information rather than none at all.

The literature was accompanied by hand-sketched pictures, ones that had little relation to the words beside them. Or if they did, Julia couldn't find the significance.

It spoke of niffins as cruel, blood-thirsty creatures, warning the reader of their fearless and unprincipled behaviors. Niffin sightings were explained to be extremely rare. And living to tell of those sightings was even less common. It also went in depth into what must be done with a 'free-range niffin' as the book called it. It told of rituals and trapping niffins inside boxes to keep them from harming the world around them, but making said boxes was complicated, messy work that wasn't to be taken lightly.

But the more Julia read on the topic, the more she was convinced that the girl appearing scarcely through her life was not a niffin. But if she wasn't, then what was she, and why was Julia seeing her everywhere she looked?

A particular section of the yellow-tinted pages caught her attention, labeled "summoning a niffin" but the last few letters of the heading were smudged into an inky blob.

The text below the title was listed in bullet-points, separated into columns with shaky, dark borders drawn around them. One list was the supplies needed. One was a step by step guide. And for once, Julia was grateful that the world had given her a straightforward answer. For a moment, she didn't believe it. She was definitely unaccustomed to things working in her favor in life.

Still, she copied the instructions onto the palm of her hand in pen. The directions were fairly simple: return to the place where the transformation took place, call out a few Egyptian chants, and offer something personal-- something the niffin would remember from their human life-- as bait.

Nothing about the information gave Julia insight into why she had been seeing Kady flashing past her eyes, but she assumed that if Kady was a niffin, the summoning would work. And if she was truly gone-- if it was just Julia's broken mind creating its own coping mechanisms-- then the girl wouldn't show up.

Either way, Julia would be left with less questions than she had started with, even if the possible answers had the potential to break her even further.

And if summoning a niffin killed her, like the multiple warnings and disclaimers on the page said it would, then so be it.

The place of transformation was easy to remember, considering the events that occurred in that location never seemed to leave Julia's mind.

But the personal effect was harder to conjure from her thoughts, and Julia sat on the question of what would be used as bait for the better part of an hour before she realized the items she needed were enclosed in the room surrounding her.

The chair she sat in scraped obnoxiously against the hardwood panels below it as she stood from the table, shutting the books and tucking them under her arm to return them to their shelves. But before she did, Julia took a detour to a familiar ledge up a set of three stairs. As if they had been waiting for her eyes to fall upon them, five black hardcovers with gold-lettering stuck out from the center of one bookcase.

They might as well have had 'these are the personal items you need' written across their spines.

Before the decision fully worked through the messy maze of her thoughts, Julia was striding forward, hand outstretched in preparation of grabbing the series in front of her.

They burned in her grasp as she made her way to the front of the library, the stack of books weighing heavily in her arms.

"Um, excuse me?" A high-pitched, pretentious-sounding voice asked from behind her. Julia could practically hear the disgusted look that was probably on her face. She spun around to face the blonde she had already expected the voice was coming from. The girl was about the same height as Julia, maybe a tad taller, but close enough to where their eyes easily held each others' gazes. The confident blonde squared her shoulders and cleared her throat, obviously intimidated by whatever superior vibe Julia was radiating.

"Books are not allowed off campus." She could have scoffed the phrase and sounded less full of herself.

Julia vaguely remembered the rule from her days at the school, but never saw it enforced enough to commit it to her memory.

"I'm just borrowing it." Uptight blondie looked young enough to be a first year, and Julia just hoped she was stupid enough to believe the bullshit Julia was falsifying.

"Dean Fogg said books are not allowed off campus. Not even for borrowing." Her arms were crossed, now, and she looked at Julia from the tip of her upturned nose, as if she had some authority over her.

Julia wondered if she had been as revoltingly arrogant when she was at the school.

Either way, Julia was sure that goody-two-shoes wasn't going to let her leave, especially now that all her first year followers had their eyes glued to the spot where she stood on the rug.

So, reluctantly, Julia pushed past the girl-- making sure to allow their shoulders to brush slightly, enough to send the blonde hair stumbling backwards before blondie cleared her throat and returned to her seat on the couch.

Julia half-expected the other students to fill the room with applause, like the blonde had somehow averted some terrible crisis with the use of language alone. No one did; they just returned to their literature like nothing ever happened. Julia had a feeling it wasn't blonde-bitch's first time reciting the rules.

It didn't matter much to Julia, even though she had secretly been hoping to steal the books for herself. She felt justified in thinking she deserved them. They were one of the only things left in the world for her to remember Kady by. When Julia had found her in the abandoned apartment, she didn't have much with her besides a deeply stained outfit, which they had thrown away as soon as she was wearing a different, much cleaner set of clothing.

Julia found herself thinking about the outfit often. She wished she hadn't thrown it away, as terribly disgusting as it sounded.

But Julia didn't need the library's Fillory series. It wasn't the only place in the world that was stocked with them. And one of the other places she knew she could find them popped into her head.

Quentin was most likely still in Fillory. Chances were, she could drop by his house and ask his parents for the set of books without causing too much of a scene.

But, as per usual, the universe had other plans for her.

Julia knocked on the door of the quiet, welcoming home-- the one she remembered spending endless afternoons inside as a kid, back when Quentin would have rather died than miss a few hours of being with his best friend. Those times felt like distant memories, ones so fogged by the length of time separating them that Julia could have been tricked into thinking they were all part of an oddly realistic dream.

She could hear stirring from inside the house, signaling that the occupants were coming to open the door, and she bounced on her heels, staring at the well-worn welcome mat below her to keep her mind off of its usual, endless roller coaster of thoughts.

The lock from inside clicked once, and the door tugged open, revealing a familiar woman behind it.

It was Quentin's mother but she was older. She was frailer and hollow like the most important parts of her life had been ripped from her grasp. Julia only recognized the expression because it was the same one she saw everyday when she looked in the mirror.

"Julia?" She spoke as if it was the first time she had in days, croaking out the response in three broken syllables.

"Hi, Mrs. Coldwater," she faked the best smile she could, even reminding herself to squint her eyes along with it to make it seem more authentic. The older woman flashed a much less genuine one back, looking over her shoulder a few times before returning her gaze to her son's childhood friend. "I just wanted to--" the words came to a halt abruptly in her throat at the sight of scruffy hair rounding the corner to get a peek of who the visitor at the door was. He stopped and gaped when the question was answered.

"Julia," his version of saying her name was less confused-- more direct, in a way that conveyed his surprise to her presence, while also maintaining a look that almost made her feel unwelcome.

But she was too tangled in the web of mental curses she was spewing at herself to wallow in the feeling.

Of course, Quentin would be taking some sort of annual holiday from Fillory on the exact day that Julia planned to stop by, hoping for the stop to be undetected.

But there he stood, in his awkward glory-- apparently being the king of Fillory hadn't changed him a bit-- probably on the verge of exploding with questions that Julia would be expected to answer.

And some part--deep, down inside her-- hated him. Because he was the one that had given her the god-killing knife. And that knife just so happened to be what led her and Kady into the biggest fuck-up they ever made. It was his fault. Because placing the blame on him hurt tons less than reminding herself she had a role to play in the disaster, too.

Mrs. Coldwater welcomed her inside and Quentin led her off to his room, closing the door behind them.

"Is everything okay?"

And, again, nothing was, but this time it was far worse. This time, the numbness consuming her prevented any tears from escaping her eyes.

"No, I need your Fillory books." She didn't have time-- or the desire-- to sit around and play catch-up with Quentin, so she cut straight to the punchline.

The request must have sounded as ridiculous to him as it did coming from her mouth.

"What? Why?" His eyes betrayed him, shooting glances at the nightstand beside his bed, and Julia followed to gaze, cluing her in on the location of the items she needed. He never was good at keeping secrets.

Julia squeezed past the boy, who did little to stop her as she tugged open the top drawer.

"I just do. I'm only borrowing them." She half-lied, considering she didn't know what would become of the books after the niffin possibly got a hold of them.

"There's something you're not telling me"

'Yeah, obviously,' she wanted to say, but refrained, letting out a long, heavy sigh, instead. Once the five books were stacked in her hands, she stood from beside the nightstand and kicked the drawer closed with her shin.

"Why aren't you in Fillory?" Mostly it was meant as a distraction from his previous implications, but it also satisfied the part of Julia that desperately wanted to be mad at Quentin for leaving her when she needed him the most.

"I came home for my dad's funeral." Quentin's eyebrows sat low on his face, conveying the disgusted offense he took to Julia's question. But the expression neutralized when he watched Julia's face morph to one of regret and confusion. "He had brain cancer, and I didn't know because I was too busy being king of Fillory." His eyes fell to his feet, which were kicking at the carpet just for the sake of not sitting still.

Julia wanted to feel sad. She wanted to feel sympathy towards Quentin's loss, but she barely managed to conjure up enough pity to feel anything other than disinterested. She had no room left for negative feelings; all of the space was taken up by the depression and regrets that had been looming over her for months. She settled on a nod, hoping that it justified as an appropriate response.

"I'm sorry, Quentin. I just-- I need the books. Please." She emphasized, tapping her fingers along the top of the stack and trying to hold back the memories that struggled to stay put when she touched them. Quentin's face reclaimed some of the offense it had held moments before.

"Um, okay," he scanned her face desperately for some sort of answer to what she had gotten herself into. She hoped he didn't notice that her face held the same depth of emotion that his mother's did. "Take them."

"Thank you," and the fake smile made its second appearance, but Quentin knew Julia's real smile too well and instantly caught on to the facade, his air diving deeper into suspicion. She stopped him before the expected questions could start to surface. "I promise when I'm done with these, we can meet up. I'll explain everything. But right now--" she purposely let her voice trail, figuring Quentin could finish the sentence for himself. And he did, nodding slowly, his eyes back on his shoes.

Julia pulled the bedroom door open and walked back out to the entrance of the home. Quentin didn't even attempt to stop her from leaving.

 

* * *

 

The alleyway felt different when she wasn't entering it with excited confidence and the hopes of killing a god.

It felt dreary and depressing and only held the possibility for closure rather than a new beginning.

The tears were pooling in her eyes before she was even standing near the blackened concrete, charred from a searing, blue fire. Her shoulder was buzzing in protest, as if the mere idea of returning to the location of its injury was enough for it to mimic the pain it felt. The sound of Kady's screams rung menacingly through her ears and when she finally did kneel in front of the spot where Kady had transformed, her hyperventilating was enough to make her vision blur with sliver stars.

The books rested in a pile beside her, the first novel on top, prepared to be used. Her hand still held the Egyptian chant she needed to say, but the inky symbols smudged into the creases in her palm, making them just barely legible.

It took a full ten minutes for Julia to put a dent in the anxiety rising in her, and when her breathing was slightly less heavy, she attempted the chant. She read over the language a few times in her head to ensure she knew exactly what to say.

The words left her mouth in choppy syllables but she didn't falter as she spoke, convincing her that the incantation was said correctly.

And when she was done, she reached for the top book in the stack.

The pages were worn from Quentin's probable long hours of reading them, but overall held a vaguely similar look to the ones in the library.

"The Chatwin Twins and their older brother had been sent to the countryside." Her voice managed to maintain a steady tone as she read from the first page. "From a young age, Martin Chatwin had a gloomy nature. And to combat his melancholy, he would lose himself in stories of wonder." She hiccuped the beginning of a cry as she continued, suddenly relating to Martin in a way she never had before. "So he knew that he would have trouble convincing his brother and sister that this was no fantasy. Rupert, wounded in the war and the first Chatwin to put away childish things, and Jane, the family skeptic."

Julia paused when she finished the paragraph, looking over her shoulder a few times to see if the niffin she was summoning had made an appearance. Her glances were useless and only met with cement and empty dumpsters. She turned her eyes to the darkened sky above her.

"Kady, please." She whispered to no one. When she returned to the reading, she flipped a few pages ahead, hoping that a further excerpt would draw the niffin to her.

"Martin thought they needed Fillory but, no, Fillory needed them. It is here that our story begins, but be warned, this adventure is no mere children's tale." Another pause. Another glance around the alley. It was still empty.

And the pattern repeated itself for the better part of an hour, and by the time the sun was low enough in the sky to begin to hinder Julia's ability to read, she was yelling random quotes from the books, muffled by tears, well-aware that the ritual wasn't working.

It wasn't until she heard heavy steps behind her that she halted her combination of choking out sentences in between sobs and begging the niffin-turned girl to show herself.

The source of the footsteps was not the curly-haired girl she had been expecting. Instead, Quentin was rushing down the path, just enough light on his face to display the worried expression painting over it.

"Julia, what are you doing?" She jumped at the sound, as if she had forgotten that other people could talk besides herself. But hearing Quentin struck a nerve deep inside her-- one that forced her head to bury itself in her shaking hands.

She didn't see him kneel beside her, but when his hand fell on her shoulder, she leaned into the touch, pulling her tear-soaked palms from her face and throwing them around Quentin's shoulders.

And just like she had weeks before, she recounted her story-- poured out every horrid detail-- her body falling numb as she explained the failure that had occurred. And Quentin just listened (most likely attributed to his lack of knowledge in comforting someone) holding her close and squeezing her shoulder reassuringly throughout her monologue.

It helped nothing. Kady was still gone. Julia was still broken. And nothing would ever be the same again. But somehow, just sitting in the alley, engulfed in each other's embraces, helped to steady Julia's rapid breaths.

So, they sat. It might've been minutes, or hours, but Julia didn't want to let go, realizing how thankful she was to have her arms around someone-- and to have arms around her-- after weeks of them feeling empty.

 

* * *

 

Julia was drunk, again. It had been at least a few days since Quentin found her in the alley. He stayed with her the first night, laying on opposite couches in silence. But when conversation did filter its way in, they spoke in whispers, just loud enough for one another to hear.

They didn't talk about anything, specifically, just speaking when a thought came to one of their minds.

Quentin told Julia about his adventures in Fillory and Julia would interject at random points with off-topic questions as if she hadn't been listening at all. She was listening, her mind just wouldn't sit still anytime an inquiry entered it.

Through their conversation, Julia learned that her efforts to summon Kady were wasted. Dead niffins were gone for good. And though Quentin didn't comment much on Julia's sightings of the Kady since her death, it was obvious he thought of her as nothing more than an emotionally traumatized girl, seeing flashbacks to bad memories. She didn't blame him. She sounded crazy.

But after the first night, Quentin was summoned back to Fillory via Eliot, who Julia faintly remembered from Brakebills.

She let him leave; he'd done enough for her anyway-- probably far more than she deserved-- and she wasn't exactly keen to letting him stick around in fear that she would see Kady again and convince the boy she was truly falling off the wagon.

And while Julia was _mostly_ convinced Kady was gone, that didn't stop her from chugging a few glasses of bourbon in the hopes that her fractured state-of-mind would merge with the alcohol and create the apparition she was in desperate need of a visit from.

Aside from necessities, Julia wasn't completely sure if she had left the couch at all in the days since Quentin had left, just wallowing in her own self-pity and insecurities.

Nothing mattered to her anymore, anyway.

Julia slid down on couch until her chin touched her chest, not opposed to the idea of falling asleep in the position, even if it would result in terrible kinks in her neck the next day. She wasn't in the position long before a familiar voice broke her from the silence in her mind.

"Idiot." Her eyes snapped open at the harsh voice, one that she hadn't heard in what felt like an eternity, but her brain was too clouded to fully understand the weight of the situation. The vision of Kady was back, but to Julia, it all just felt like some mean trick. And she wasn't going to fall for it this time. The insult barley phased her as she pulled herself into sitting taller.

"I summoned you three days ago. Nice of you to finally show up." She feigned apathy, hoping that the lack of reaction would drive whoever was probably messing with her to give up the act.

"You can't summon me. I'm--"

"I can't summon a dead niffin. Trust me, Quentin told me it all. Look," she paused to hiccup and slug down another shot of whiskey. She was close to blacking out. Just a few more drinks and the whole thing would be forgotten. "I killed you. And this," she motioned sloppily to Kady's air. "isn't real. So, whatever you are, if you could kindly get the fuck out of my life, I'd greatly appreciate it." Julia ended the remark with an obviously fake smile, the kind that was meant to be sarcastic. She liked the boldness that was being conveyed through her words. It wasn't a common tone for her to take, but she wondered if it was one she could get used to.

Kady scoffed.

"You thought your pussy-cat of a cacodemon was enough to kill me? I thought you were a knowledge student, Julia." She spat, her eyes squinted, arms crossed over her chest in a way that displayed the impatience laced into her tone. The jibe hurt more than Julia had expected, probably because Kady-- the Kady she remembered-- would never have been so crude towards her.

The question winded Julia. She had watched the cacodemon kill Kady. There was no way she could have survived the attack.

"But you--" the bravery was gone from her voice, leaving behind the pathetic uncertainty that always seemed to linger in her body no matter how much Jack Daniel's she downed.

"All your cacodemon could do was stuff me away, wherever it found most convenient." Kady talked as if Julia was supposed to understand what she was saying. But Julia wasn't following any of it, the bottle of whiskey in her hands accounting for most of that confusion.

"The tattoo, Julia." She practically groaned. Even with indignation masking it, the sound of Kady saying her name sent chills up Julia's back. But she forced the sensation from her thoughts, suddenly more interested in the other part of what Kady was explaining.

And just like a lightbulb had been switched on, Julia's thoughts metaphorically erupted in light. She wasn't going insane. But she didn't know if she preferred the truth over the falsehood she had been growing used to.

Kady was inside the tattoo. Inside her body. Her thoughts. Her entire being.

"We're stuck together, now."

Julia was thankful the black-out beginning to take effect stole her from being awake any longer.

 

* * *

 

Kady seemed incapable of shutting up after that night. As if Julia had tuned into an inescapable channel, one that she couldn't mute with alcohol or sleep.

And the words were no longer information on how the hell they had ended up in their current situation. No, they were just useless, random insults, shot at Julia for no apparent reason other than to seemingly annoy the girl. And not even a full day after Julia had gained the knowledge that Kady was locked inside a tattoo on her back, the insults were close to constant-- telling her she wasn't good enough. Calling her boring, weak, pathetic, stupid-- name it, she had heard it.

And even if Julia attempted to ignore the slights, it only resulted in them getting worse.

It was like the invisible girl _wanted_ Julia to hate her.

And, honestly, it was kind of working.

Though Julia could never hate the Kady she remembered, the dislike towards the one sharing her mind came easily to her.

And while Julia tended to steer clear of reliving the horrible decisions that had led her to the position she was currently in, the recollections seemed to be Kady's most well-versed topic of discussion.

She knew niffins could be terribly cruel creatures, but she would have never guessed that constantly being reminded of her failures would fall into the category of 'cruel'. In Julia's opinion, Kady tormenting her about the day in the alley passed the line of cruelty and dove head first into being downright wrong and unfair.

"It wasn't your fault," was just one of the many mantras Julia found herself repeating daily, in hopes that it would prevent Kady's impeccable logic on the situations from cutting her too deeply.

But it was her fault. Kady knew it. Julia knew it. Kady just happened to be the one that liked to use it against her.

They had considered every possibility in their plan to kill Reynard, taking each scenario into account, revising if needed to accommodate the dangers. They spent days perfecting the plan, yet the events that unfolded were miles and miles from perfection.

"You know what you didn't consider?" Kady was shouting, now, her fists clenched into tight balls. Julia should have been used to the yelling; it happened anytime the shorter girl tried to block out what she was saying, but nothing burned deeper inside her than hearing her best friend-- the girl she had grown to love in the few months of knowing her-- shout at her as if she was nothing more than a stranger on the streets that had done something terribly rude to upset her.

Julia's hands were over her ears as she hummed loudly, hoping to shut out the voice around her. It proved fruitless; Kady simply moved her harassment to Julia's thoughts.

"What if the knife didn't work? What if Quentin was a fucking idiot who didn't know his own head from his ass?" Kady continued, her volume steadily increasing until the questions were blaring sirens in Julia's mind. "What if he was wrong? What if _you_ were wrong? You killed me, Julia. All because you were too stupid to think of a plan that actually could've worked."

Julia had heard the jibe before-- it appeared to be one of Kady's favorites-- but it never lost its original sting, no matter how many times she prepared herself to hear it.

She killed Kady. She was stupid. So, so stupid. How could she have been so blind?

The abuse never seemed to stop.

At first, Julia would just stare at the ceiling for hours from the warmth of her bed, begging her mind to shut off and allow her to sleep; a task turned far more difficult by the niffin constantly hovering near her.

She found that allowing her eyes to grow heavy under the weight of her own tears proved to tire her out the quickest, and crying came easily to Julia when the girl she loved sat directly beside her, spewing harsh insults at her. Had Kady not known Julia's insecurities before, she sure as hell knew them now, and wasn't afraid to point them out any chance she received.

But as the days passed, the words became harder to ignore, burying themselves deep below the surface of the tough facade Julia was attempting to hide behind. Kady was breaking her.

"You let me go and this all stops." Kady was suddenly in her thoughts, appearing on the recliner beside her. Whatever twisted, reverse psychology Kady was trying to use, Julia could feel herself falling for it.

"How?" And while her mouth was asking, her head was already declining the idea.

"Just like the cacodemon. Say I can." The sickly sweet smile on Kady's lips was enough for Julia to know there was more to the story than what the niffin was revealing, and she wasn't going to fall for anything other than the full explanation.

"And then what? You're gone for good?" Her voice betrayed her at the last moment, cracking and revealing the true uncertainty behind it. Because even the idea of living with never-ending insults hurt less than the idea of never hearing Kady's voice again.

Kady obviously noticed Julia's apprehension as she stood from the recliner and stalked her way over to the space directly in front of Julia.

"I just got you back." She was mumbling it just as Kady began to answer, their words overlapping.

"I'm gone, and you get your life back."

Julia wanted to say that she'd never get her life back-- not unless she got Kady, too-- but she refrained, squeezing her eyes shut meekly, in the hopes that it would shove the niffin from her thoughts, but fully aware it wouldn't.

"But where would _you_ go?" Julia suddenly felt incredibly thankful that she lived alone, for if anyone shared the apartment with her, they would surely find it strange that the girl was staring at the empty space in front of her and speaking to nothing.

"Wherever the hell I want. I'm a niffin." Kady shot back without much thought. Julia's mind briefly recounted all of the information she had seen inside the books at the library.

Kady _was_ a niffin. A bloodthirsty, cruel, destructive niffin. And Julia had made a lot of terrible decisions in life, but she didn't want to add 'releasing-a-world-destroying-entity' to the list.

"I know what you read in those books, Julia. But I don't want to hurt anyone."

"Bullshit, you're a niffin." She threw the girl's own words back in her face. Kady rolled her eyes, letting out an audible groan to convey the irritation she was feeling.

"I just want to be free. Instead of sitting around and watching you cry like a puppy that lost its favorite toy." Kady spat, her signature glare as an added effect. But Julia ignored the harshness, remembering the official reasoning for their conversation.

"I can't set you free until I have the spell I need to box you."

The explanation sent Kady's head throwing back in laughter.

"You really think you'll be able to pull that off?" The niffin was still laughing as she asked it, shaking her head to fully reveal the disbelief and doubt she was feeling.

"I think I'd rather try than do nothing at all."

But the statement began to hold a sense of irony as days continued to pass without any furthering in her plans to create the tool she needed to box the niffin. Truly, Julia used the excuse of 'research' as a tactic to ensure more time with the girl stuck inside her.

While there were days when Julia returned to the library to read and reread the literature she already knew would hold no answers for her, she half-assed any of the tasks that were essential to completing the spell, for the sole purpose of spending just one more day with Kady.

Because she wasn't ready to say goodbye. She wasn't ready to enclose her favorite person in the world inside a piece of wood for eternity, even if it was the right thing to do.

And so, one more day became two. Then, three, until Kady gave up on giving Julia the necessary time she needed to study, replacing those hours with more cruelties with the purpose of annoying Julia to the point of finally breaking her and convincing her to shout the necessary words to set Kady free.

Julia's naturally stubborn personality seemed to be the only thing allowing her to stand her ground and hold her tongue.

She was never not drinking, typical for when problems showed themselves in her life; she downed shots of vodka with each new slight, hoping the fluid would be enough to drown out the words being thrown at her.

It was the most depressing drinking game she had ever played, but it at least secured her a chance to sleep, even if that slumber was alcohol-induced, and always resulted in a killer hangover the next morning.

Somehow the headache and nausea was worth it, as long as the events of the night before were fuzzy enough that she could barely unscramble them into a coherent memory.

And the method worked for a while. But just like all good things in Julia's life, the success of her only escape came to an end, eventually.

The onset of a few out-of-place symptoms were barely noticeable, considering Julia was almost constantly hungover, but she did, however, recognize something was not right when she woke up to a heavily blood-stained pillow, finding the source of the fluid to be from her nose.

She stared in the bathroom mirror at herself, ignoring the content-looking Kady behind her, and running her hands under the cold faucet water. She splashed the water on her face, scrubbing away the blood that had dried under her nose, on her cheek, down her neck, _in her hair_.

Julia could barely bring her eyes to look at herself in the mirror until she was cleaned up, terrified when she would catch glances of the incredulous amount of red staining her face.

But when she was slightly less disgusted with her appearance, she turned to the niffin behind her, breathing uneven and quickened.

"What did you do to me?" She growled, stepping closer as if it would intimidate the brunette.

" _I_ didn't do anything."

"Cut the bullshit, Kady. Why the fuck am I bleeding?" Her heart was pounding, her hands trembling as she held the harsh tone with Kady. It never got any easier to raise her voice at the girl she had once been falling in love with. It still sent hot daggers into her gut each time.

"You can't hold a niffin inside you forever, Julia." Kady was smirking, which wasn't uncommon and would have once made Julia smile, too, but today the smile only made her hands itch to collide with Kady's jaw. And she would have done it if she didn't already know that her fist would go right through the girl and hit the wall behind her.

The phrase felt like ice in her veins, shocking her to the true weight of the situation. "You keep me inside you, and you kill us both." Kady clarified in case their was any part of Julia that hadn't already considered the possibility. The coldness growing inside her somehow managed to take a deeper drop in temperature.

"I-- I just need more time. I'm almost done making the box." She lied half-ignoring the ultimatum that was just given to her. Her fingers found their way to her scalp and ran through it, catching on knots and curls that had formed after days of not showering.

"You've been at it for a week, Julia. And all you have to show for it is a carved piece of mulch."

"How long until--" She couldn't bring herself to finish the question. Kady seemed to already know what she was planning to ask.

"Days, maybe. I could always speed up the process if you need a little incentive." The smirk was back and the niffin raised a few fingers, pointing them at Julia and turning them to the side. Immediately, a steady drip of blood fell from one nostril.

"No, I--" Julia pressed the pad of her thumb against the bleeding side to slow the stream, her heart suddenly pounding in her chest.

"Don't be weak, Julia." It could have been taken as motivation, but the spitting anger it was said with only sent clear lines of tears down Julia's cheeks. The situation as a whole felt terribly overwhelming and Julia couldn't help but notice her head spinning in confusion and fear.

"I'm just trying to do what's right, Kady. And--" Again, Kady cut in before the statement was fully out of Julia's mouth.

"You've fucked up enough in life, why does it matter all of a sudden?" Julia dropped her hand from her nose, her chest constricting at the words that never seemed to lose their original offensiveness.

"And I'd be able to decide a lot quicker if you weren't insulting me every chance you get." She finished her previous statement in a yell, finally breaking, her fists clenched into tight balls of whitening knuckles.

Kady seemed taken aback slightly by the abrupt temper. As taken aback as a niffin could, probably.

"You leave me alone and I'll make a decision." It held far less anger, said in a huff under her breath, as if she was afraid she had upset the girl across from her. Kady didn't buy the claim, flashing a suspicious eyebrow raise at the words. "I promise." Julia feigned sincerity, holding her gaze with the green eyes that could probably see past the facade.

But Julia blinked and when her eyes reopened, Kady was out of sight, complying with what Julia had wanted.

Her promise was nothing more than an excuse. Truly, she had no idea what decision she would make. But the seldom heard silence distracted her from the weight that was resting on her shoulders.

She slid down the wall behind her, wallowing in the loneliness.

 

* * *

 

The longer Julia waited to make a decision, the weaker she became.

Her appetite fizzled away more and more as the days passed, making lightheadedness a common occurrence. The nosebleeds upped their frequency to multiple times a day, only adding to the shakiness she felt from the combination of malnutrition and blood loss.

And while she claimed to Kady that she was still making a decision, Julia deliberately avoided thinking on the subject, living the lie that if she didn't think about it, it couldn't bother her.

And the decision itself didn't bother her too much. But the inability to stand from her couch without nearly passing out? That annoyed her incessantly.

Kady was a fly on the wall to Julia at that point. Very much still there, but not buzzing around her head constantly with insults and demands. Though she did interject a painful reminder each time Julia would get a crippling headache or a gushing nosebleed, reiterating the theme that they were running out of time.

And Julia couldn't let her own selfish desires kill Kady, because if it was up to her, she would let this niffin inside her kill them both, in hopes that there was something beyond living where the two could meet up and be free of the problems that plagued them on Earth.

But letting Kady roam the world unboxed posed its own set of problems and possibilities. Because if the girl's claims of just wanting to be free were untrue and she really did want to do harm, then Julia would be the one who indirectly caused that destruction-- the one who made the metaphorical spark that set the forest ablaze.

And as time ran out, Kady grew angrier, abandoning her commands to give Julia the much needed time to think, and returning to her pesky harassment, this time, not only using jibes to get her point across. This time, Kady had taken a liking to using guilt to fuel her attempts to be set free.

She begged, she pleaded, she reasoned, even going as far as to say that she would trade her freedom for anything Julia wanted in the world.

Too bad the only thing Julia wanted was the thing she would need to trade in exchange for it.

And that's when she made up her mind. Because a world without Kady was a world she didn't think she wanted to see.

So, gathering up all the remaining strength and energy inside her, Julia stumbled out of her apartment as soon as the sun had set, unsure where she was headed, but continued walking anyway, only stopping when she was standing in the center of a dirt-paved, abandoned junkyard.

It was quiet-- a rare feature to find in any part of New York-- and ensured that she would be alone for as long as she needed, and maybe even some time after that.

And by the time she made it to the middle, her eyes were crossing and her body was on the verge of giving out.

So, she let it. She fell to the ground with a thud, narrowly catching herself with the heels of her hands before pushing her way onto her back.

Somehow, even Kady was maintaining the silence.

"Kady," Julia broke the hush, her words slurring immensely from exhaustion. She wasn't drunk but she might as well have been with how loopy she felt. "I'm sorry." It left her lips in a cracked whisper. "I'm sorry for everything."

And as if the apology had flipped a switch, Kady was talking again, yelling for Julia to get up-- to pull herself together and save the both of them.

The world around her darkened, but she could still hear Kady's shouts of anger, yelling for Julia to set her free or she'd kill her. She'd kill her and make sure no one came for her. Julia wanted to laugh, because no one would, regardless.

But the voice was getting quieter, fading from her mind. This was it. Julia either had to let Kady kill her, or she had to let her go and free herself of the only thing keeping her alive anymore.

The voice of the niffin suffered a drastic change when it found Julia's eyes to be falling closed, shutting out the moonlight caressing one half of her face.

"I wouldn't have wanted you to die." Kady was frantic. Julia could imagine the girl shaking her awake if she had been able to. "I'm not supposed to kill you."

The words broke the dam holding the tears back from Julia's face, and they fell freely out of her eyes, soaking themselves into her hair. "I wanted you to stay alive. Let me go and you'll live."

The reasoning was tempting-- very tempting. The vision of Kady's face just before she morphed into the niffin she currently was played across Julia's vision. It was true. Kady would have wanted Julia to live. To move on and find a new life. But Julia didn't know how to find a new one when the only one she ever wanted could never exist. Kady heard those thoughts and used them to her advantage.

"I don't want to watch you die. You're supposed to be okay without me." Julia swore she heard tears muffling the words.

"I'm not." She managed, barely a whisper. Her arms felt too weak to hug around herself any longer, and they fell to her sides, exposing her chest to the frigid night air. The movement reminded her how cold she truly was.

"You need to be, Jules." The use of her nickname quickened the pace of tears on her cheeks, forcing them to mix with the blood that fell from her nose. She knew Kady was right. It was pathetic to let herself die. It was cowardly, but for once she felt as if she deserved the easy way out. "Please." It was the most emotion Julia had heard from Kady's voice in a while.

God, she loved the sound of Kady's voice. She loved the raspiness it held when she spoke softly. She loved the way her mouth tugged into a smirk with each phrase. She loved the way her laugh could brighten any moment.

She loved Kady.

"I love you, too."

Julia knew that the confession could very well be a product of the niffin's naturally manipulative behaviors, but she hung onto the words. They echoed through her thoughts, either because Julia couldn't stop thinking about them, or because Kady wouldn't stop saying them.

Nonetheless, she allowed herself to relive the moment a few more times before she sucked in a labored breath, her eyes rolling back with the effort.

She could feel everything. Every memory. Every touch. Julia could feel Kady's lips on hers, moving rhythmically, exactly how she remembered them from the night of their first kiss. She could remember the happiness she felt as they fell asleep in each other's arms, all before everything went wrong.

But they were just memories. Memories of times she would never see again, never feel again, but always remember.

This was it. There was nothing left for her.

"Julia says go free."

It might have been her injured subconscious adding its own flair to the ordeal, but Julia swore it hurt far more to let Kady out of her back than it had to let the cacodemon out.

She coughed and sputtered, involuntarily rolling onto her side as the niffin left her skin.

Julia didn't understand how she ever thought Kady had looked realistic before, because as the blue-lit figure towered over her, she realized she hadn't seen her-- in the flesh and not a vision that only she could see-- in weeks, and she looked perfect. Her shining eyes were beaming with excitement, even if the mischievous smirk on her lips made Julia think otherwise.

Kady looked happy. And for once, Julia was sure she had made the right decision.

Brown curls caught in the wind as Kady tilted her head towards the stars, eyes falling shut in content as she breathed in a long breath of fresh air.

Fluttering open, glowing green connected with dulled brown one last time, mischievous smile growing wider in genuine satisfaction.

And with one final eruption of blindingly bright flames, Kady shot through the air, leaving a line of sizzling smoke in her wake.

The blood was rushing back to Julia's brain, like flipping the switch on each of her nerves until she could feel the world around her once again. Her body felt unnaturally heavy, including her eyelids which wanted nothing else but to fall closed and drag her into a deep sleep.

But even the thought of moving weighed heavily as a task she was not prepared to put forth the effort to accomplish.

She certainly couldn't return to the queen-sized bed in her apartment, it held too many memories. Memories that would claw their way through Julia's chest, pushing their way past her lips in choked sobs and screams. She wasn't ready to face the emptiness that awaited her in the sheets.

Yet, in that moment, she trusted in the fact that she couldn't let herself fall sleep in the dirt, below the light of the waning gibbous moon.

But the pain had never been so overwhelming. She was drowning in it. No float, no kick board, no snorkel. Not even a measly pair of goggles. Just seemingly endless stretches of blackened ocean, ready to throw Mother Nature's ruthless obstacles at her from every direction.

Injustice had undoubtedly become a reoccurring theme in her life.

Previously, Julia had always been able to push past the swelling sea of melancholy, finding her way to calmer waters until the next wave tested her. But each time, the waves came back, they were larger and stronger, bigger and better, until Julia was engulfed in the tsunami of grief. Calm waters were a thing of the past.

And her feet couldn't kick anymore. They were exhausted, in desperate need of a break. But she was certain if she stopped, it would be the end for her. The wave would swallow her whole, suffocating her under the depths of her own emotion.

Julia had to stay strong.

It's what Kady would have wanted. She was supposed to be okay without her.

And every fiber of her being desired to live up to the expectation.

But she was broken. Broken beyond the hope of ever finding someone or something to quell the constant ache that had started to build its permanent residence in the emptiness where her heart should have been.

Broken, but not enough to ever forget what the girl she loved had last said to her; Kady's last words to her.

_Do more than try._

And though the instruction had been said under a different context, she couldn't help but notice how relevant it was to her current state.

She was going to do more than try.

It hurt like hell, but she pushed to her feet.

Julia stood from the dirt and kept kicking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aw, it's over ):
> 
> my original intentions were to end this WAAAAY sadder but after the recent episodes, it just felt too un-julia to have her not get up and keep going. she's such a fighter (':
> 
> thanks to anyone who read this, enjoyed it, hated it, cried, laughed, screamed, got drunk after, idk. i appreciate all the support on it immensely! 
> 
> housekeeping-  
> 1.) i tried my best to make this as cannon as possible, but some things had to go (e.g. julia's pregnancy/losing her shade) or i would have made this about double the length.
> 
> 2.) i used the monologue from the pilot as the first pages of the Fillory book, because i was not about to write my own version of how i thought the books started. 
> 
> again, i'm @bestbltches on twitter if you'd like to block me? or follow me? or band together and form a post-fic support group? up to you. i'm also new to tumblr @magicianstextposts
> 
> anyway, lots of love to you all! sorry about this mess i've caused, ha. 
> 
> -callie


End file.
